Dulcis Memoria
by E. M. Zeray
Summary: In the middle of a conflict between an old hunting family and the Beacon Hills pack, a witch comes along to stir things up even more and leaves Stiles with amnesia. Now Stiles thinks he's two years younger, has no idea about the werewolves or about how dark and brooding Derek Hale is his mate, and he only has a week to learn everything before he has to negotiate a treaty. Sterek.
1. Primum

**A/N:** Hello, there! So this is a giant monster that my friend Adri and I have been working on for about a month and we're very exciting to begin posting it!

The title, Dulcis Memoria, comes from the phrase: dulcis memoria est praesteritorium malorum, meaning _**sweet is the memory of past troubles.**_

This is a Stiles/Derek fic that includes explicit language and sexual situations so turn back now if that's not your thing.

Enjoy! ~

_**Primum**_**: The First**

The witch is kind of, like, super evil, and apparently has some grudge against Derek because this… This is cruel.

And this just cannot be happening.

Because there was some chanting, a little poof of an explosion, and then Stiles just fell over.

Derek's immediate response was to run to him—he was standing on the opposite side of the witch next to Derek and Erica, while Isaac and Boyd were flanking their Alpha—but now he's on the ground, pinned there by the witch standing over him.

He tosses her off of him because she's tiny and he's really not in the mood for her shit, but when he reaches Stiles, it's worse than he thought.

The kid is fine, physically. Just…

He's sitting up, shaking his head, and grumbling.

"Jesus Christ—Scott, what the hell, man? It's, like, midnight and I need to get home before my dad freaks out on me _again_ and—oh." Stiles is sitting up now, and he's apparently just noticed Erica, who is leaning over him opposite from Scott. He grins goofily. "Hi, I'm Stiles."

Erica blinks at him. "I know—Stiles, are you okay?"

He nods. "Totally—just slipped. No big." He's blushing now, probably because he's embarrassed himself in front of a pretty girl, and Derek's immediate response is jealousy and fear, because he has no idea what's happening.

Scott looks just as confused as Derek feels, so Erica scoots a little closer to Stiles and asks him in a slow and curious voice, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Stiles looks over at Scott, then back at Erica, then around to the fire, Derek, Boyd, and Isaac, and his eyes are wide. "You guys aren't all looking for the body, are you? Because if my dad catches us out here trying to find it, he's gonna ground me forever; especially if he thinks I'm with some hunting party."

"Body?" Erica asks.

"Yeah—you know. Body in the woods." He gestures around wildly. "The woods. There is a body."

Realization floats over Scott's features. "Oh."

"Amnesia," Boyd concludes, and Scott follows up with, "He thinks he's 16."

Stiles arches an eyebrow. "Um, I _am_ 16."

"And he doesn't know who Erica is—which means he doesn't know who Derek is," Isaac adds with a sigh. "We have to go through this whole thing again. If we thought the first time was hard enough, imagine it now."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He looks back at Erica. "Erica, like, Reyes? Damn, girl, you got one hell of a makeover."

She growls at him, and he scrambles backwards into Scott.

"Wait," Derek says, and his voice is commanding. Because if Stiles has gone back to the night in the woods when he and Scott were looking for the body… That means he has no idea about the werewolves. "He doesn't know."

"Doesn't know _what_?" Stiles insists. He looks incredibly annoyed now, like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Stiles 101: The Crash Course," Erica drawls. "You're 18 now, it's 2014; your best friend is a werewolf, the rest of us are werewolves in Derek's pack—that's the big scary guy who keeps looking at you really fondly. Also, you and Derek are kind of in love and you guys like to make out a lot, among other things."

Stiles looks terrified. Scott looks exasperated.

"Way to be gentle."

Erica shrugs. "Rip off the Band Aid all at once—also." She turns back to Stiles. "You were just cursed by a witch because your boyfriend pissed her off. Well done."

Remembering the witch, Derek spins around, searching in the darkness, but she's gone. He had been too distracted to notice her exit.

"…werewolf," Stiles says slowly. "Werewolves and witches. You guys are kidding, right? I mean, a kid bonks himself on the head and you decide to mess around a little—" Stiles is cut off by Erica holding her phone out, the date illuminated and plain. Stiles' mouth falls a little wider open. "Oh."

"You really don't remember anything?" Derek asks. He's schooled his expression back to distant and cold, and he tries not to notice the way Stiles is looking at him like he's a stranger.

The kid's only response is a shake of the head.

"Erica," Derek says, and turns to the rest of the pack, "move him over, check him for a concussion." She nods and shoos Scott away, dragging Stiles carelessly as he hisses and barks things at her quietly. Once they're a few feet away, he continues, "Boyd, take some of the things the witch touched, try to follow her scent. Isaac, research."

"Stiles always does research," is Isaac's argument. Derek simply arches an eyebrow, and the beta shrugs and walks away, back towards the Hale house.

The other betas carry on, leaving Scott, and Derek looks over to where Erica is poking Stiles in the temple. Physically, he's no different, but Derek can sense the apprehension, the fear. This Stiles, the Stiles that's two years younger and less confident, doesn't know how to handle himself in a situation like this. It took him weeks to learn the first time.

He's smart, though, Derek knows. So they'll handle it. They'll fix it.

Stiles looks up at Derek, mouth open just slightly. Derek can feel the attraction he's radiating, but it's like it was. It's not strong, potent, I-like-your-mouth-on-or-around-my-mouth-let's-kiss-because-we-can attraction. It's new attraction, the passing glance on the street, the vague hey-he's-cute attraction, and it fades so quickly that Derek feels a little insulted.

Scott is just standing there, staring back and forth between the two of them.

"Take him home," Derek says, finally tearing his eyes from Stiles. "Make sure he's safe."

Scott nods. "Yeah. Sure. What about…?" He looks through the trees and Derek knows he's thinking about the things that Stiles has stashed up in Derek's bedroom. Clothes, toothbrush, deodorant. He brings them over in a backpack when he's supposed to be "spending the night at Scott's", and tonight is no different.

"Go in and get them."

Scott looks vaguely ill. "Dude, that's like your _private-time_ stuff."

Derek, with all the authority he can muster, says low and cold, "Scott. Take him home. Now."

Alright, so maybe Stiles isn't internally bleeding to death, but Erica is worried. Being a werewolf gives you a whole other sense of what's right and what isn't and Stiles looking at Derek like he's less than relevant is downright unnatural. "Are you sure you don't remember at all?"

He rolls his eyes. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to remember. I was on my way to tell Scott about the body in the woods and now I'm here." He looks around himself then, ignoring Erica's concerned eyes. "And I guess I made it to the woods then, but I don't get how you got an extreme makeover, Scott looks like he's been doing weights, and I'm apparently friendly with Derek freaking Hale."

Erica looks over her shoulder towards Derek and Scott only to find that Scott has left and Derek's eyes are trained on the back of Stiles' head, not even trying to hide the hurt.

Derek shifts just barely, jerking his head, and Erica knows that's her cue. She stands, brushing off her jeans, and holds out a hand for Stiles. He's looking at it like it's poisonous.

"I don't bite," she says. Then, with a smirk, "Unless you ask nicely."

She can hear Derek growl.

"But that's really more of his territory."

Stiles takes Erica's offered hand and looks over to the man standing stiff and looking pissed. He dusts off his jeans as best he can and licks his lips. "You wouldn't happen to know where I left my Jeep?"

Erica crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him. "You think we're going to let you drive like this?"

He's about to protest when Derek's voice startles him. "Scott will get you home."

Stiles isn't going to admit he's scared but he's in the future, in the woods, with Derek Hale and some third Pokemon evolution version of Erica Reyes and he can't really deal if Scott isn't there. "Yeah and where is he?"

It appears that Dark and Broody needs a minute to think that over. "He's getting your things."

"You're going to have to be a little more forthcoming there."

"Erica," Derek's practically growling and that gives some validation to the werewolf thing, "take Stiles up to the house and go with Scott to take him home. Sheriff's not going to believe a word he says."

"Wait, my dad knows about all this?" Stiles' eyes are wide, staring at Derek like he'd just announced the death of a childhood pet. "I told my dad about _werewolves_?"

"Once you and Alpha started hooking up"—and Derek growls just slightly because really, insensitive much—"Derek thought it was a necessity to let him know."

Derek crosses his arms. "But that doesn't mean he has to know everything, and that certainly doesn't mean he has to know about the witch. Make something up. Training exercise gone wrong, Scott slammed you into a tree and you're feeling a little dizzy—if you need to remember something, call Scott or one of us."

Stiles is sitting in his Jeep a few minutes later, squished between Erica and Scott, a duffle bag that he was definitely not even going to consider looking into right now on his lap and a simple lie coming together in his mind. "So if I tell him I got knocked into a tree during...training..."

"He's going to rip Derek a new one," Scott says, "and then have a word with my mom, which is fine."

"I advise against telling him you don't remember stuff though," Erica says, her hand resting on his leg like it's the most natural thing in the world. "He freaks out about you all the time as it is. Not much has changed at home for you anyway. Well, except your dad's picked up dating again."

Scott bangs his head against the steering wheel. "Shit, the Argents."

"Dating? Whoa… Go Dad. Finally. Oh, God, is it that lady from the Olive Garden? Because she always gives me extra breadsticks. Also—Argents?"

"Shut up for two seconds." Scott wiggles awkwardly, eyes still on the road, and then his phone is in his hand. "The Argents are a family of hunters."

"Werewolf hunters," Erica spits. "And other supernatural stuff."

"Like the freaking Winchesters, but we're the good guys in this situation. Right? Scott, tell me we're not evil; I'm not built for evil."

Erica huffs beside him, "We're not evil. The hunters are evil."

"The hunters aren't evil! Don't listen to her Stiles," Scott says seriously, "we team up with them like all the time."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine, it's more like the sucky fake werewolves and the sparkly vampires at the end of Twilight."

Scott makes a face. "I thought Derek put a ban on references to Twilight."

"Yeah," she grins, "but Stiles loves breaking it, don't you, Stiles?"

Stiles is done trying to be the least bit incredulous by now. "Sounds like me."

The sound of a ringtone splits the air and Scott groans loudly, glancing at the clock on the Jeep's dashboard. "Crap, I'm late. Allison's gonna kill me."

Erica laughs humorlessly, rolling her eyes. "She'll probably be more worried about Stiles, actually."

Stiles shakes his head. "This is too much—explain _slowly_. _Enunciate_. Who is Allison?"

"Girlfriend," Erica coos. "Allison _Argent_."

"You're joking," Stiles says, sounding all kinds of frustrated. "No, what am I saying, you would; you have no concept for self-preservation. But on the plus side you're getting laid! You are, right? Tell me you're not eighteen and a virgin. Wait hold on; am I eighteen and a virgin? No, God, I take it back, don't answer that. You're dating a hunter?"

Scott is speaking quietly into his phone and Erica is laughing silently beside him and they're home. At least home is still home, at least some things don't change. He takes a deep breath and jumps out of the Jeep. Erica is beside him but Scott is still in the car, looking sorry for himself and mumbling into the phone.

"Can we just...?"

"Leave him there to get eaten alive by Allison? By all means," she nods, "it's a hobby of ours; we do it for sport."

Inside the house, things are slightly easier. The duffle bag is still within the vicinity and it's kind of terrifying because he's supposedly dating Derek Hale, right? And the dude's doesn't really give off the dinner-and-a-movie vibe. Instead it's more of a hot-sex-until-you-can't-walk vibe. Stiles doesn't really want to find out if he's right.

Luckily, the worst he gets from his dad is an angry speech about how Scott needs to be more careful and he'll be calling Melissa in the morning—Stiles can tell from the way his voice evens out towards the end that he was wrong. It's not the woman from the Olive Garden.

Stiles' brain is screaming, _You're dating Mrs. McCall?! You don't even call her Melissa!_ but what he says instead is, "I'm just gonna go sleep this off, alright?"

His dad nods at him, clearing the cups of coffee Erica and Scott had left behind because apparently that was a thing now, an ever present pot of coffee that wasn't there before. He climbs up to his room and finds that it's mostly the same except it isn't. His desk is full of maps and graphs, dusty movie-prop-looking books and pictures. He doesn't really keep pictures in his room but there _are_ pictures. They're stuck on random places on the wall and he can't recognize himself in any of them. One is a hilarious action shot where his dad and Melissa are simultaneously smacking their sons over the head; another is of himself in a cheek-kiss sandwich between Lydia Martin and a pretty dark-haired girl he doesn't know. The last one is the shocker though. It's a candid of Dark and Broody Derek Hale with a Stiles monkey on his back. His legs are wrapped around his stomach and his mouth is barred in a laughing snarl over the man's neck, as if he were about to bite. Derek is squinting; obviously he hadn't expected the attack.

It hits Stiles then that this is actually his life. That these people are his life and he hardly knows most of them. It hits him that the guy who jumped on his boyfriend's (seriously he is not getting over that soon) back and was friends with a bunch of werewolves and fought supernatural shit on a daily basis is gone, and that these people have lost him. He has to get that guy back.

Once Stiles snaps out of his thoughts and manages to function long enough to get into bed, he realizes that he can't sleep. He should be tired. He should be torn apart with exhaustion, ready to slip into the abyss of dreamland but he's just…not. His heart is still pumping too loudly, his brain is still working on overdrive, and he can't stop thinking about, well, everything.

Werewolves.

Witches.

Amnesia.

Evil Winchesters.

Scott getting laid—

No, he really doesn't need to think about that one. Good for the guy, really, but Stiles doesn't exactly need a visual.

He rolls over in bed, staring at the window on the south side of his room. It's open just a crack and Stiles is unnerved by it, like something could come crawling in at any moment. Like there's just another supernatural thing waiting out there for him and—

"Ah!" He falls off of his bed, taking some of the blankets with him as he crashes to the floor.

The window is open now, and Erica is standing in his room, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched. "Some things never change."

"What the hell!"

Erica rolls her eyes. "What? You thought we were going to leave you alone? You're bewitched, you could sleepwalk off the roof, and Alpha would have us all for dinner if something happened to you."

He sits up and squints at her. "Why don't you call him Derek?"

She pulls a picture from a bulletin board that he hadn't noticed and smiles down at it. "Because he earned it."

He groans and plops down on the bed. "I'm not really internalizing the part where I'm boning Derek Hale. Because he's Derek Hale and I didn't even know he was living here again and also he's a guy and I wasn't sure that was my thing and also have you _seen_ him."

Erica laughs and runs her hands through his hair (which is quite a bit longer than he remembered) as she says, "You'll remember him."

"When? When the witch un-cursifies me?" He sounds bitter. "What are the odds of that happening?"

"You might be surprised." She sits down next to him on the bed, handing him the picture. "He's actually very resourceful. Smart, too."

Stiles doesn't even look down at the photograph. Not yet. He needs to be coherent, he needs to get some answers, and he doesn't know how examining the picture will change things. "And Scott? What other information have I lost about Scott because of all of this? And…that was Boyd, right? Boyd's a werewolf, too? And Isaac? What about his dad? What about…?" He trails off. "Everything is fucked."

"You still like lists, right?" Stiles watches as she stands and climbs into the bed with him; she sits across from him and gnaws at her lip. "Alright, werewolves: Derek and Scott, obviously, Isaac, Boyd, and me. Jackson."

"_Jackson_?"

She snorts and nods. "But he's out of town with Lydia. They're looking into whether his birth mom could have been a werewolf and how she actually died if she was."

He blinks but nods for her to continue.

"Scott and Allison are so married, it's disgusting. She's pretty badass when she's not trying to kill us. And um, I don't know…it's just so much." Her eyes fall on the picture on his lap again. She tilts her head, watches as his fingers fumble and his eyes stay up. "I can hear your heartbeat. You're scared to look at it, aren't you? Like it'll reveal another part of you that you don't want to think about."

Stiles swallows tightly. "Um."

Erica reaches forward, one of her slender, feminine hands holding onto one of Stiles' wrists as the other reaches for the photo. She takes it from him, lifting it.

It's them. It's all of them.

There's Scott, with his arm around the now familiar dark-haired girl who had been the one kissing his cheek—Stiles assumes it must be Allison. Next to her is Lydia, who looks a lot more grown up than she did the last time Stiles remembers seeing her, and she has an arm over her shoulders that's attached to Jackson. He's a bit taller, looks sturdier, and yeah, Stiles can see the werewolf thing. On the other side of Jackson there's Isaac, smiling an obviously genuine smile. It makes Stiles happy. That's an expression he's never seen on Isaac before.

Then comes Derek. He's all dressed in black, complete with that leather jacket he'd been wearing hours earlier, and he looks relaxed, actually. He's not smiling, not really, but there's a quirk in the corner of his mouth, like he's amused. Stiles is next to him, leaning into him, and the Stiles outside of the picture stares in wonder, because the comparison is ridiculous. The whole idea is ridiculous.

Past Stiles there's Erica, who's doing some leaning of her own into Boyd, and that's it. That's the picture. That's the pack—that's their family.

"One big happy family," Stiles says quietly. He bites his lip and pushes the picture away. "Does it hurt that he's not here? The guy who fits into this...freaking insanity like that? Because, Erica, you're still the girl that sits next to me in Trig and doesn't talk. And I don't know my best friend's girlfriend. I still have my heart set on Lydia Martin and I don't know who Derek _is_. But look at this guy," he points at the Stiles in the picture, "look at him. He's all happy and comfortable and..."

He's having an anxiety attack and it could go into full blown _panic_ but before he can say anything else Erica is wrapped around him, full body. They lay down like it's perfectly natural, just the thing to do, and he thinks about how many times he imagined this, a gorgeous girl wrapped around him in bed and he laughs softly because this is so not like that. It feels like he's five years old and he's not bone-deep alone.

She's nuzzling him, he guesses it's a wolf thing because he feels warm and calm inside and then she whispers in his ear, "I don't think love goes away just because you can't remember it."

That's how they fall asleep, clutching each other and breathing each other's oxygen, waiting for morning.

-0-

Derek doesn't sleep. He paces, researches, and aches, because Stiles is supposed to be there.

If things had gone their way, if the witch hadn't been such a…well, such a freaking _witch_, then Stiles would've been there, in his arms. Stiles would be the little spoon and Derek would be the big one, and they would have sex and then boil in a too-hot shower as they kissed before they returned to bed, skin all red and mouths swollen.

They would fall asleep like that. They would wake up the next morning and there would be breakfast in the kitchen, courtesy of the ever-active and ever-intrusive Erica. The pack would gather, sans Scott and Jackson, and they would eat breakfast together around the table. Stiles would smile at him, that comfortable, perfect smile, and maybe they would even kiss, right in front of the pack.

It would've been perfect.

But reality rarely is.

The only way things could've been worse, Derek thinks sourly, is if Stiles had actually died. But Derek would've died himself before he let that happen—it was something that he maybe had just the slightest bit of control over, unlike this. He can't control this. He can't control Stiles' mind or his feelings. He can't make Stiles love him. He can't make Stiles remember.

So Derek doesn't sleep.

When Boyd comes back in the morning to find Derek and Isaac hunched over a table of books, he reports following the scent into a suburban neighborhood and losing it almost immediately. Derek says they'll start there this afternoon.

"You're not okay, are you?" Isaac asks, because he's the one who would.

Derek shrugs. "I'm fine."

Boyd doesn't say anything, just opens the window the way Stiles always does in the morning and pats Derek on the back. "If we don't find this witch…"

"We're going to find her," Derek growls.

Isaac looks like he doesn't want to push it but he knows that they have to. "If we don't find her, we need to think of another way to get Stiles back."

He gets up to pour three cups of coffee and hands them out, frowning when Derek doesn't reach out for his and just lets it sit.

"Derek, just because he doesn't remember he loves you doesn't mean—"

"You think _that's_ what I'm worried about?"

Boyd and Isaac don't hide their expressions of _'well duh'_ but Derek ignores them. "This witch attacked our pack. I can't let that pass. What Stiles thinks of me right now is irrelevant, but the pack needs him. We need him to trust us and want to help us because we're going to be very screwed if we don't have him. Especially with Lydia away and with all this…junk happening."

"What Stiles thinks of you right now is completely relevant!" Isaac argues. "All you do is worry about Stiles and the pack, and yeah, we need his help a lot of the time, but you aren't worrying about whether or not he'll help us—you know he will because he's the same Stiles he always was and he wants to remember just as badly as you want him to. What you're worried about is that he's regressed into hating your guts."

Derek growls too loudly, eyes flashing red, and Isaac has just enough intelligence to hold his hands up in apology. Derek pushes his chair back, his eyes still glowing red, and he turns for the door. He's about to go into his full Alpha form—something he usually avoids—when Stiles walks in. Erica is just a few steps behind him and it's a testament to how disoriented he is that he didn't sense them coming. Stiles is frozen in front of him and he realizes that he's half turned. He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders, and closes his eyes until he knows they're their natural color again.

Then, "What are you doing here?"

It takes a second of Derek's stare before there's a reaction, but eventually Stiles sets his shoulders, standing up straight. "I'm an amnesiac and I want some answers." He picks lifts the tote his has in his hand. "We've been to the library."

"It's eight thirty in the morning."

"I was referring to the library I apparently have in my room now, but whatever." And then he just continues straight into the room and sits down next to Isaac, already hefting books out of the bag and onto the table. When he looks up, the bag now empty, and notices that no one has moved, he gestures to the chairs. "Well?"

Erica grins. "See, Derek? Some of him is still here."

Derek doesn't miss the way Stiles' mouth twitches into a frown for barely a second, and he knows no one else in the room does either. But none of them say anything. Now's not the time.

Isaac makes more coffee. They read.

What feels like hundreds of hours later, Stiles is returning from his third bathroom break when he straddles his chair with the back against his chest and slams the book he's holding down on his desk, eyes skimming over the open page. "Okay, this one seems pretty legit. I mean, as far as information on witchcraft goes. There's stuff about spells and rituals—but I haven't found anything about amnesia yet, but I assume there's gotta be something in here."

Silence is Derek's only response. He's the only one left in the room. Erica went with Boyd to follow the witch's scent back into suburbia and see what else they could dig up, and Isaac excused himself shortly after they left, claiming it was his turn to do the grocery shopping.

When Stiles looks up from the book, he sees Derek leaning in the doorway, stiff and unresponsive. He hasn't sat down at the table since Isaac left.

"You okay, man?"

Derek nods shortly. "Go on."

"Are you usually this bossy?"

Something flashes behind Derek's eyes—the fact that Stiles has to ask about his habits—but it's gone in an instant. Stiles feels a pang of guilt.

"Look, I—I'm sorry. For not…remembering."

"It's not your fault. Magic."

Stiles wonders if Derek always uses so few words, but decides it's probably not a good idea to ask. So instead, he simply says, "Right. Well. I've been at this for…four hours? And I told Scott that I would meet his, you know, _girlfriend_ today, so…"

Derek shoves his weight off doorframe. "Did you drive?"

He nods. "The Jeep. She's a little more destroyed than I remember."

Derek nods and it feels awkward as hell. They're both standing idly now, just staring at each other, and of course Stiles is the one to break the silence.

"It feels like there's this whole other guy and you guys are stuck with me."

Derek opens his mouth but he has nothing to say, it sort of does feel that way. Stiles takes a look at him and his face falls. Derek wants to pull him close and nuzzle at his cheek until he smiles again but he can't. He can't touch him or kiss him or even scream at him for fear that confusion will turn into hate. He licks his lips, says, "The pack needs you. You're... Everything was a mess. Erica and Boyd ran away, Scott almost started a pack and Isaac was going to go with him and everything was falling apart and you prevented it. You hold us together, Stiles."

He shakes his head immediately. "No, I don't—the other one, the one you guys know, maybe he does. I don't do anything but homework. And chase after Lydia Martin."

Stiles doesn't see Derek's wince.

"I'm not him."

"Not right now. But you will be."

Derek imagines the implications of that. What if this is starting over? What if there's no cure and Stiles actually has to go through two years of reliving his life before he falls in love with Derek? Of course, their first kiss is just under a year away from where Stiles is in his head, but that doesn't mean anything. What if that's what it takes? What if Derek has to wait?

He knows that he would do it. If that were the only option, he would wait. He would wait forever for Stiles.

Stiles looks down at the table, at the dozens of books and highlighters, and smirks just barely. "I think, if you don't mind, I'd rather stay for a little while longer."

Derek nods stiffly. "Sure."

Derek makes a cup of tea the way Stiles likes it, because he might indulge the entire pack's coffee addiction but Stiles isn't partial to it himself. He sets it next to Stiles on the table and watches him. He's being unfair. Stiles is still Stiles. So they have to start from zero, that doesn't mean Stiles isn't who they need right now. He still does that odd and distractingly sexy mix of biting and sucking on the end of his writing utensils and then beating it on the side of the table. He still hums the original Star Trek theme under his breath while he reads and he still. Catches him. Staring. Every fucking time.

"I'm sorry," he says, like it'll make the suspicious glances Stiles keeps giving him go away.

"It's cool, man, it's just… You know, still getting used to…everything." He clears his throat, shifts in his chair. Derek is sitting as far away from him as possible while still being at the table, and the werewolf buries his nose in a book, just so that he doesn't have to deal with the confusion and helplessness that's coming off of Stiles in waves.

He still peeks up, though. Every once in a while, he'll lift his eyes and then wrestle them down back to the printed woods in front of him because he can't keep doing this to himself. He can't keep staring, not when their relationship right now is so volatile. He has to let Stiles come to him. He has to let Stiles work it out for himself.

"So is the staring thing a side effect of our relationship or is that how you convinced me to go out with you in the first place?"

Derek would like to say that he's stunned by the question, but he's dealt with Stiles for long enough to let it roll off his shoulders—with just the tiniest bit of an ache because, really. "Yes," he says, pleased because that answer is a power play. He wonders if Stiles is enough like his old self—the one who let Derek shove him up against that door in his bedroom only for a moment before calling the shots himself—to bite back.

"So no flowers or anything, then?" Stiles whistles. "I must be a pretty cheap date."

There's a beat. "No."

"…no?"

"Not, you're not." Derek doesn't even look up from his book. He remembers then, because he can't stop remembering, nearly a year ago. The one-year anniversary of their first kiss. Complete with dinner, candles, and a semi-romantic romp on the living room couch before they actually managed to stumble into the bedroom. Derek had let him have wine. It had actually been quite a romantic evening.

Stiles smiles, bright and huge as always. "What, then? Drives to LA with front row tickets to the games or, like, something stuffy like opera, because if you didn't know I would sleep through that, I could've told you."

Derek shrugs one shoulder. "Nothing like that. But it wasn't…it wasn't like you're thinking. We weren't even—not until you were 17. And even then, we weren't really _dating_ until about eight months ago. We waited to tell your dad."

His lips quirk. "That's kind of adorable, dude." Derek can see the idea blossom in Stiles' eyes; it's one of his favorite things to watch. He's not sure how he feels about the idea, though. "Tell me about him. Who I'm supposed to be." The truth is, Stiles thinks that if anyone wants his memories back in his head just as much as he does, it's Derek.

Derek takes a deep breath and sets down his book. "Where should I start?"

Stiles gnaws at his lip and it's the most tempting thing Derek can imagine. "Whatever makes sense. I mean, I'm not as shocked as I probably should be that I'm dating a dude, so that's something."

It's with huge self-control that Derek holds back a smile. He thinks that it might make Stiles feel more comfortable, actually, but it's too late and he doesn't even want to smile anymore once the words sink in.

"I could start with that," Derek says. "You being attracted to guys, I mean." It seems appropriate, but he also doesn't know how to make the words come. "You were still 16 when you told Scott you were bi, and then a week later you were…staring at me. And you're not really that subtle, you know."

"Mmm, me, subtle, no. You met Lydia Martin? Getting on her radar involves a complete lack of subtlety and some outrageously blatant declarations of love."

Derek blinks. "You kissed her eventually." Stiles' eyes go wide. "It was Christmas, last year, and you and I were fighting because…" He clears his throat. "Because of reasons. And there was eggnog and mistletoe and Jackson was tipsy, too, and she kissed you under that mistletoe for a solid thirty seconds before Jackson intervened."

Stiles blinks and then he clears his throat, and Derek doesn't know if he's going to ask about Lydia or give some shallow apology for something that he probably doesn't believe even happened but instead he says, "Well, I'm sure you deserved it." He looks like he's a little afraid Derek might punch him but smiles nonetheless.

And Derek smiles back. Just barely. "Yeah, I probably did."

"Do I love you?" Stiles doesn't even stammer, and he doesn't know where that random ass bravado comes from, but it's probably because he's so detached from this other guy. This guy that he can't even imagine himself to be because he just hasn't had enough time to process that there are werewolves and witches and a universe in which Lydia Martin used him to piss her boyfriend off and that this is his life.

Stiles is just blinking him, and Derek is at a loss. Because he's had his world tossed and shaken and destroyed more times than he can count on both of his hands, but this… This is a new low. This is worse than the demon, worse than the Kanima, and it may not be the same as Kate's betrayal and that fire, but it's feeling like it's working its way up there. There's a line to cross, and it keeps getting closer.

"Yes," Derek tells him. "Or, you did."

Stiles swallows thickly and there's tension in the room but he's intrigued by it, like running into menacing-looking waves. It's so much more tempting than it is frightening. "Erica says that love doesn't go away just because you forget." He doesn't ask if Derek loves him because he doesn't want to experience someone else's heartache.

Derek doesn't think he believes that, but he nods anyway. "Maybe."

"Well, who's she to be handing out cookie fortunes, right?" Stiles feels the nerves creep back into him and it's a foreign sensation, like a thought that should make sense but doesn't. He wants a comfort he can't even comprehend.

"Erica is smart, but she can be biased. She's not always sure about what she's doing." He glances back down at his book and then up once more. "Do you want to know anything else? Or should we go back to…" He nods down at the table.

Stiles flips a few pages idly. "Sorry if it's annoying, just human narcissism, you know? Nothing quite as interesting as my life. Which is ironic beyond belief."

Derek snorts. "Not annoying. I understand."

Stiles is beginning to understand that Derek is a man of very few words. And then he remembers—Derek is older than him. Like…a lot older than him. And he frowns. "So—how old are you exactly?"

Derek arches an eyebrow. "How old?"

"Yeah. You've gotta be older than me, right? Three years?"

"Seven, actually."

Stiles goes all wide-eyed again but he was just _really_ not expecting that. "Whoa. I mean. Cool. But…_wow_. How the hell did I land you?"

Derek cocks his head. "Are you being rhetorical or do you actually want the whole story?"

Stiles smirks. "I don't believe in being rhetorical unless you're Jackson or Scott when faced with complex sarcasm."

That's it. That's the Stiles that Derek is in love with. And it makes his heart beat a little bit faster. "I knew you were attracted to me," Derek says, and watches as Stiles goes a little bit pink. "I could…tell. And you were defensive and sarcastic and protective, especially of the pack as a whole, and I…really admired that about you. And I wasn't blind. I'm not—not blind." Before he can help it, his eyes flick down to Stiles' lips and then back up. "Eventually, I just couldn't take it anymore and I kissed you. Mostly to shut you up."

Stiles licks his lips and it's as if Derek's words flipped a switch. Because, yes, Stiles is attracted to him, rocks would be attracted to him, and if his words alone could bring up feelings like this then, "I bet that's your go-to way of fixing things, huh?"

"Kissing people?" Derek shakes his head. "No. That's just…you. You're…different."

Stiles finds that he's leaning closer. He also finds that he doesn't care. "So that's how you fix me, then?"

"You can't fix what isn't broken." And his smile then is disarming. He can tell because he can actually hear Stiles' heartbeat, loud and wet. "But it's a pleasant way of getting you to stop rambling."

This is flirting. This is totally flirting. And Stiles—he's never flirted with anyone. Not with anyone who's responded anyway, and this is—this is _awesome_.

Derek's tongue darts out just slightly and wets his lips. His smile is gone. "Sorry. That was—I shouldn't have said that. I keep…forgetting."

Stiles is sort of entranced by Derek's tongue but he doesn't miss what he says. "No, don't be. Maybe the more you forget the sooner I'll remember."

It's an obvious line, no subtlety to speak of, and yeah, Derek wants to kiss him. Derek wants to hold him close and kiss him and taste him, remind himself of the warmth and the skin and how Stiles does that coy, teasing, awesome thing with his tongue—

"That's probably not how it works," Derek mutters, his voice a little bit deeper. "I mean, magic. Most likely, the only way to reverse the spell is to capture the witch who performed it."

Stiles has his eyes trained on Derek's lips once again and he really doesn't know where this agility with flirting is coming from but it's not like he's giving it much thought. "What, never seen Sleeping Beauty? C'mon. Everyone knows how to break an evil witch's spell."

Derek clenches his jaw. "Stiles. Look, I don't—I don't blame you for what you're trying to—you think you're 16. You're young and inexperienced and—this isn't a game for me." Watching Stiles' face fall makes his heart crumble into pieces. "I can't—I won't kiss you. Not right now."

Stiles leans back in his seat, arms flailing slightly as he pulls random books towards him like maybe he can build a fort and hide. "No, yeah, I...sorry I don't know what I was thinking. I'm, you know, mentally 16. I'm like undercooked fish or half baked cookies or..." He shakes his head and it's really not the time for words to fail him now.

"It's not your fault. I… I'd be lying if I said I didn't _want_ to kiss you. But," he continues quickly, so Stiles doesn't have the chance to interrupt, "this, right now, is being affected by lack of sleep and emotions running high and you've been like this for less than a day and I can't—don't tempt me, Stiles, honestly."

He should probably listen. Derek isn't looking very _Derek_-like right now even if he has a very narrow concept of what Derek-like really is. But the Universe needs to give Stiles a break, because in his mind he's sixteen but he checked himself out before coming and he's looking pretty fit. He's no werewolf but it looks like he cut back on the curly fries and hit some sort of gym and Derek is looking at him like he's water in a desert and Stiles has never ever been able to tempt anyone before. He looks Derek in the eye and tries a deliberate swipe of his tongue over his bottom lip.

When Derek's gaze drops to his mouth, Stiles know he's won.

"You can kiss me," Stiles says. "I—I'm not him, but I want to know—I want to be him, Derek. And I want—you. Because it seems like no matter what someone talks to me about, it all leads back to you and this…this is a thing."

Derek blinks. "Stiles."

"Maybe it won't be like kissing him, but… I mean at some point you kissed me and that must…that must've been okay, right?"

Derek ponders, for a second, what Stiles is really saying. He's questioning—honestly, Stiles is asking if kissing him had been _okay_? _Okay_? _Really_? So before he can change his mind he scoots his chair out from under the table. "Come here."

It hits Stiles like a ton of bricks that he's never kissed anyone before, but before he can stop himself he's out from behind the other end of the table and he's walking on shaky legs to Derek's side and he can't help but reach out and put his hands on Derek's shoulders to make sure he doesn't fall over.

He doesn't know what to do or what to say—or whether to do or say anything at all—and so he spends about two seconds freaking out about that before Derek is up in the blink of an eye and Stiles is sitting on the table with Derek between with legs.

His hand is somehow, mindlessly, wrapped around the back of Derek's neck. He doesn't know if that's sexy or natural or a panicked reaction but it seems to encourage Derek and he's just there. Right there. Stiles watches the way the man's eyes roam over his face and it tugs at his gut the way it had hurt when Jackson and Lydia first started holding hands. Because Derek is looking, he is looking for someone else. He uses his grip on Derek's neck as leverage and his random burst of jealousy as nerve.

And then there are lips against his own. Hot, smooth, lips that are decidedly not feminine, not to mention the stubble that scratches against his chin and cheeks because—fuck. This is kissing. There are lips and that is a tongue and those are hands and this is what it all feels like. This is what kissing feels like and Stiles never wants to go back to wondering.

Derek is kissing him slowly—holding his face in his big hands and kissing him so thoroughly, so tenderly, and Stiles can tell that he's searching for the other guy, the one Derek is in love with. The thought breaks his heart.

Derek breaks the kiss gently, but Stiles isn't done. He's just not. He doesn't think he ever will be, because yeah, he's definitely, absolutely attracted to Derek. Stiles guesses attraction doesn't go away just because you forget either.

He tries to follow Derek's retreat, reaches out with his neck for him, but the man puts a big, warm hand on his jaw and holds him back. "Stiles," he says, his voice soft. "Stiles."

Stiles feels guilty. Because Derek is leaning into him then, burying his nose in Stiles' neck. He sounds like he's whimpering. And so Stiles lifts his hands and just cups the back of his head, holding him in place.

Derek sucks in a deep breath. Stiles thinks he might be crying.

And, of course, because he's Stiles, he reacts the only way he knows how.

"Wow—can't even go a day without the guy, can you?" He chuckles just slightly, but instead of calming Derek, it has the opposite effect.

Derek goes stiff and takes a step back—not far enough for Stiles' hands to fall, but enough that there's space between them. His voice is rough, full of emotion that he's holding back. "Don't. Don't talk like that."

Stiles blinks at him. "I—I'm sorry—I shouldn't have—defense mechanism, I guess."

Derek shakes his head as if he wants to move things out of it. "You don't… You don't understand, okay? I'm sure you feel very disconnected from yourself but you are _not_ someone else. Trust me we've been there. Just, avoid the third person if you can."

"How do you mean?" Stiles asks, cocking his head. "'Been there before'?" He realizes his hands are still on the back of Derek's neck, and he wonders if he should move them, but they feel really comfortable there, really right. Derek's pupils grow a little wider when he strokes his thumb along his spine as he waits for the answer.

Derek lets his eyes slide closed for a minute and then opens them again, his eyes impossibly more intense. "You were possessed. The thing would tease us about you were still there. I still… I have nightmares about it. Your mouth," his eyes fall to Stiles' lips, "your voice. It'd mock me. It'd tell me…it would say, 'He's so scared in here, scared for you more than for himself.' And I knew it was true, that you were in there and there was nothing I could do to make you safe."

Stiles is immediately struck with a heartache so great and profound that the only thing he can think of to do is lean back in and kiss Derek again, pull him closer and kiss him the way Derek had kissed earlier. Slow, gentle, and sweet. But there's only a second of it before Derek shakes his head and steps back, reaching up to grab Stiles' hands and put them by his sides.

"We're gonna get your memory back," Derek tells him. "But until then, no more kissing."

Stiles nods, shocked into a momentary silence. He may not remember Derek or the way he felt (feels?), but that doesn't change the need he feels to make things right. It's almost like a disturbance in the force. Like sleeping over at a friend's house and wondering if his dad is safe, knowing that he won't feel right until he gets back to where he's meant to be.

Derek licks his lips. "I can hear Scott coming up the road. Allison's with him." He gestures vaguely towards the room as he says, "I'll stay here and read. You can go—outside. To meet them."

He doesn't want to go out there, not really. He feels like he needs to stay and makes things right but he also thinks Derek needs a minute to himself. Stiles nods at him and scoots away, watching Derek press his hands onto the table and let his head hang. He hovers for a minute on the verge of touching him again but even he can hear Scott now, calling out his name.

Once the door is closed and Stiles is outside, Derek stands up straight and rolls his shoulders.

He can't do this right now. He can't do this to himself. He shouldn't have let Stiles kiss him, he shouldn't have encouraged it. Stiles is still Stiles in a lot of ways, and Derek can't ignore that, no matter how selfish he wants to be. Because it hurts. It hurts so bad, kissing him, kissing those lips and knowing that the only thing there for Stiles right now is attraction. Yes, he's attracted to Derek. That's evident, now. But love? No, there's no love.

And Derek thinks that's going to break him apart.


	2. Quaestiones et Responsis

_**Quaestiones et Responsis**_**: Questions and Answers**

When Stiles goes out and meets Scott on the porch, the pretty girl from the pictures is holding onto his hands. She lets go as soon as she sees Stiles and runs up to wrap her arms around him. "Stiles, God, I can't believe this is happening."

Stiles hugs her back and smiles. "Really? Because it's hardly the wildest thing that's happened—apparently. You're…Allison."

She pulls away. "Yeah, I'm Allison." She runs her hand through his too long hair with a sad smile and turns to Scott. "What does Derek say about telling my dad?"

Scott, who had been looking at Stiles during the encounter, turns back to his girlfriend with his eyes set immediately back into heart mode. "We haven't talked about it yet. We were kind of…dealing with other stuff."

She nods and turns on her heel. Stiles notices that, though she seemed like any sweet girl before, there's suddenly a kick ass I'll-serve-your-balls-on-a-silver-plate look about her, and the same step she leans in to kiss his cheek before she's pulling the door open, a whole different stance to her frame. "Alpha Hale? A word please."

Scott kind of smiles after Allison as she enters the house, and Stiles feels like the worst best friend ever, because all he can do is grin and say, "She's hot."

Scott shoves him and Stiles stumbles, not used to Scott being strong at all. He catches himself and shoves right back and they laugh; he's glad things are still the same between them. "What's up with the professionalism in there? Alpha Hale?"

"No idea." Scott shrugs. "It's a thing they do, I guess. When the hunters and the werewolves work together, she and Derek are like the diplomats. And you…" Stiles watches him hesitate, knows that it's weird for him to have to explain it. "You're the go-between for them usually. Because you're pack, but you're also a human."

Stiles blinks at him. "That sounds way more complicated than I expected werewolf business to be, and that's saying something."

With a smirk, Scott pats his friend on the shoulder and gestures to the door. "C'mon. It gets better."

Stiles is only slightly apprehensive about walking back inside the house. Because Derek is there. And that's both good and bad. Good, because he's, like, smart and dedicated to this whole amnesia business, and not to mention how nice he is to look at; bad, because he's so _freaking nice to look at_. And he makes Stiles' heart do these dances in his chest, but he also makes Stiles unbelievably sad. Because he knows what it feels like to be in love with someone who only barely knows about his existence. That's how he's been with Lydia since they met! And to think that now he's Lydia and Derek is him… Stiles wouldn't wish that heartbreak on his worst enemy.

Allison and Derek are arguing quietly. In fact, Stiles can only tell they're arguing because their eyes are all strong and frustrated. The few words he catches are civil but clipped and in the end, Allison plants her hands on the table with a loud smack and she speaks low and clear, "The Kembries are not my dad, Alpha Hale. I was okay with keeping this between the three of us when it was the three of us, but you and I can't hold this treaty. We can't even get them to sign."

Derek looks exasperated. "The Kembries have been here much longer than you and your family have, Allison. _Thankfully_, they're not as skilled as you and your father"—Allison looks slightly pleased at that—"but they still pose a threat. You _will_ convince them to sign the treaty. There are bigger things at stake here."

Allison lowers her voice again and throws a shy glance at Stiles. "I'm not saying that I won't try, but we both know I'm not Stiles. And you'll have to come too. They won't take my word for it at all. I'm not pack."

"Considering the options we have…"

Allison does a half frown. "There aren't any other options. With Stiles out of commission—"

"Stiles is still in the room," he announces then, because, honestly, he knows he's lost, but this is too much of lost. Way, way too much. He took a left turn somewhere and ended up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by too many questions.

Derek looks at him, eyes burning, and Stiles feels a little naked. And not in the good way.

"Pair of brilliant leaders like you should be able to explain what the hell is going on," Stiles says. Scott shifts beside him and Stiles stomps down the urge to reassure him. "Come on—if you can't explain it to a five-year-old or an amnesiac, you don't understand it at all. Tell me what was going on before… You know. Just pretend like I lost my notes. Break it down for me."

Derek looks pained at the idea. He looks at Allison, though, for her input, and she's smiling softly, like she's proud of him.

"The Kembries are a family of hunters," Derek says. He leans against the table, the heels of his palms on the surface keeping him balanced. "They've been in the surrounding areas of Beacon Hills even longer than the Argents, but they're not as talented as they think they are. Over the years, they've been getting more antsy—as I've been adding members to the pack, they've been rallying forces to attempt to exterminate us. The Argents, however, have assured them that everything is under control in their land. They doubt it, and they're worried about us expanding out of Argent territory."

Stiles arches an eyebrow. "Okay. So, where exactly do I come in?"

Allison smiles at him, and her face is startlingly sweet again. The most surprising part is that it doesn't even look fake. "They don't trust werewolves as far as they can throw them and they don't trust my family to not be bragging and overconfident. But having a human second highest in rank in a growing pack? Well, they stop and think about that." She shrugs like it's all obvious. "That and you're quite the diplomat."

Stiles can't help the wide eyes he's sure he's making. "Second highest? What—but I—I'm not even a werewolf!"

"Doesn't matter," Derek grunts. "The Alpha's mate is always second in command."

Stiles chokes on air. "Wait, hold the phone—mate? _Mate_? I just wrapped my mind around _more than friends_."

Scott looks uncomfortable and Allison looks sad, and he really can't bear to check what Derek looks like. There's a heavy silence before Allison speaks up. "It's just a title, Stiles. An honorific."

Still, Stiles shifts his weight from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. "Look, not that I'm not, um, _honored_, but really? How am I… How am I supposed to fix things?"

"You don't." Derek's voice is hard and Stiles is taken aback by it. It's the first time his appearance matches him like that. "You're not in any condition to be involved in this."

Allison sighs and looks torn, tugging at her lip with her teeth. "Maybe we can bring him up to speed."

Derek looks at her with his eyes as hard as stone. "We have enough to worry about. The witch, for one."

"Stiles can help, though. He always has. He's a natural. That doesn't go away just because—"

"You don't know that," Derek argues, and he sounds just on the wrong side of hurt. "There are lots of things that go away when someone loses their memory. Trust me."

Stiles feels like he's just been kicked in the chest. Ouch.

"What if I want to help?" Stiles asks then, because he wants to be useful. Really, he wants to be whatever he can to make this easier—even if he's not totally sure how to do that—because, yeah, it may suck for him, but he can't imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and have Scott not know who he is. He can't imagine how much that would hurt.

Derek is still looking at him with that cold, closed off stare. "Why would you want to?"

Allison looks annoyed and Scott still seems to want to flee. But he doesn't. Instead, Scott steps up to Derek. "Because it's Stiles. My Stiles—before he became ours, way before he became yours. He's always been Stiles and Stiles always wants to help."

And Stiles… Stiles doesn't even know what to say to that. Except, "Man, you are totally my best friend."

Scott grins.

"Look," Derek says, interrupting, "you don't know anything about our politics. 24 hours ago, you didn't even know werewolves _existed_. You _can't_ do this."

There's a brief flash of hurt in Stiles' eyes that's quickly replaced with steely determination. "Are you sure you know me at all?" It's biting, but he doesn't regret it. "Because nothing makes Stiles Stilinski more determined to do something than being told he can't."

There's a little quirk to Derek's lips but it doesn't reach his eyes. "You have no idea what all of this entails. What you've made us. My family, the pack I was born into, we were a family and we stayed away from things like this. If a stronger pack bothered us we were more likely to disperse and wait it out than to take a stand. The first time I even suggested we go to New York to wait out a threat you bit my head off." Derek shakes his head and Allison takes over.

"What he's trying and failing terribly to say is that you made the pack very dynamic. You don't just exist, you assert yourselves and you defend your land; it's part of what has the other hunters so ill at ease."

"You can't fake pride in your pack, Stiles," Derek says, his back turned to him, "you just can't."

"So I won't fake it!" He's determined now, anxious to prove himself. This is a step. Maybe, if he does this, it'll jog something in his memory. Maybe he'll be one step closer to getting the other guy back. "I mean, I'm already proud of Scott most of the time, especially now that he has a girlfriend." Stiles grins hugely at Allison, who smiles back daintily. "So give me a crash course in wolfy politics and I'll be golden."

Derek is just not having any of it. "It's not going to work."

Allison rolls her eyes, walking towards Stiles. "I'll start, since he's being sour."

The words stir something inside Stiles, something that moves too quickly for him to grasp, although the greedy fingers of his mind reach for it desperately. It passes, though, and Stiles turns his attention to Allison.

"Alright, so where should we start?"

"What's the treaty we need them to sign really about?" Stiles figures that's as good a place as any, and Allison looks at him approvingly, her gloss-pink lips spreading into a smile.

Derek snorts. "They'll know something's off," he tells them. "If Stiles gives off a hint of fear—"

"The Kembries aren't like you, Alpha Hale," Allison says, not even taking her eyes off of Stiles. "They can't smell fear. And I trust Stiles. Don't you?" She does look at him then, eyebrows arched and expectant, daring him to answer her.

Derek closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I wouldn't have a right to be Alpha if I didn't trust my mate. But I also wouldn't have a right if I ignored an obvious mistake—and sending him to those people with superficial knowledge is dangerous."

Stiles looks back and forth between the two—the hunter and the werewolf—and feels his mouth go just a little bit dry. It's threatening. He's lost two years of knowledge, of experience, but he can feel it in his gut. He knows how to do this.

"How much time do we have?" he asks, and he forces himself to be confident.

Allison is the one who answers him. "We have a meeting set up at the end of the week in neutral territory. We were working on the details when you guys started dealing with the witch. It derailed us a bit."

"That's more than enough time." He looks at Scott with a gleam in his eye. "Remember our second semester finals last—freshman year?" he corrects himself, smile only faltering momentarily. "We played videogames all afternoon and crammed for three hours before crashing."

"I got a C on my Bio final."

Stiles nods. "I got As."

Allison grins at him. "Let's cram." She nods for them to follow her into the living room and starts pulling books and folders from a shelf. Stiles sits on the arm of the couch and Scott goes to Allison to ask how he can help.

Stiles holds back a smile when Derek walks in. "We need his iPad." Derek's face looks slightly softer now and he lays a hand on Stiles' shoulder just for a moment before ripping it away like the touch burns. He swallows tightly before saying, "It's where you keep your notes and things."

Stiles' mouth is open. "Um. Yeah. Right. Well, Erica packed a backpack for me this morning with stuff—I left it in the Jeep—"

Derek's walking outside before Stiles can say anything else.

Allison licks her lips, glances back and forth between Scott and Stiles as if debating whether or not to say something, and then sighs. "Alright, I have to ask. When you said that thing about being more than friends, Derek looked at you like…like you've talked about it. Did you talk to him about it?" She looks eager, hands clasped in front of her and shoulders drawn up. "Tell me everything."

Stiles blinks at her and gulps. "Well, it's, uh, kind of? I'm obviously attracted to him. He just thinks that I shouldn't…that we shouldn't…dammit. That I shouldn't try to, uh, get _close_ to him until I remember things. Which is stupid, I think."

Allison arches an eyebrow. "And get close you mean…"

Stiles glances nervously at Scott. The other boy shrugs. "Man, I've dealt with this for over a year. There is nothing you could say to me to creep me out anymore."

"We kissed," he tells her, and he feels like one of those Disney Channel caricatures of a girl. "It was awesome. But… But I don't remember him and I guess it just…hurts. For him."

"And you liked it?" she asks. "The kiss, I mean."

But before Stiles can answer, Derek is striding inside, backpack in hand. He sets it down on the table, ignoring the situation around him as Allison turns back to the folders in front of her with a quick wink at Stiles—Scott simply rolls his eyes.

"Here," he grunts, shoving the iPad at Stiles. "You." He turns to Allison. "You handle this. You train him. And if he's not back to normal by next week…" He looks like the thought pains him. "We'll see about what happens then. I'm going to go catch up with Erica and Boyd and follow up on the witch. Text me with updates."

He looks at Stiles briefly before he leaves, and Stiles wonders if Derek is debating the ramifications of a goodbye kiss. Nothing happens, though, and Stiles feels like another peg of rejection is being hammered into his heart.

"Nothing better than not even being wanted by the guy who's supposedly in love with you," he grumbles, flipping open the leather cover and staring down at the illuminated screen.

Scott surprises him then, because Scott is his best friend and Stiles loves him, but deep statements of wisdom aren't exact his forte. "There are lots of things about Derek that you can't just learn. You sort of...have to experience him. It's weird. But the way he's acting is pretty easy to understand; it's really easy to make someone young go all stupid in love for you when you're hot, and Derek is, like, way painfully aware of that."

Allison is nodding slowly and there's a resolute sadness in her eyes. "Derek is wary of things like this, love coming too easily. It scares him. He just doesn't want to hurt you."

Stiles shakes his head. "You know for being so formal with him you seem to understand him pretty damn well. But I don't get how he thinks he'd hurt me."

"Like right now. You're hurt because you think he's rejecting you—but he's only straying away from the emotional side of things because if he tries to reconnect with you, it hurts him. And so he's debating which is the lesser of two evils." Allison reaches out and puts a hand over his on the table. "Stiles, he doesn't want either of you to be hurt."

"So, I do what? Give him his space?"

Scott snorts at that. "I don't think you can do that."

Stiles shrugs one shoulder. "No, I probably can't." He sighs. "Alright, we should get down to this, right?"

Allison nods decisively. "Yes, we should."

-0-

Derek finds Erica and Boyd in a bookstore just outside of Beacon Hills. He doesn't actually know where the witch lives permanently so it seems plausible that they followed her scent here, but unlikely.

"Books," is the first word out of Erica's mouth when he approaches them. "We tracked her scent to suburbia—close to where Stiles lives, actually. We decided, however, not to approach her, just in case that would make you angry." She spins, shoving two books into his arms. "Spell book. Chapter 15: Spells That Affect the Mind. The second one is Volume 2: Remedies and Reversals."

Derek tries to hold back a growl and fails. Erica's expression is impatient and he takes the book fully, shaking his head as he looks at Boyd. "Spell books?" he asks. He takes a deep breath and look at them both. "Unless you expect him to heal himself, we'd have to wait for Lydia to get home either way. None of us have the slightest hint of Ability."

Erica smirks, cocky as ever. "I don't know. I think maybe Allison and I could give it a whirl. How hard can it be?"

"Considering that if you do anything incorrectly Stiles could retain permanent brain damage?" Derek shoves the books back into Erica's chest, satisfied when she reaches up to take them instinctively. "Pretty damn hard."

Boyd clears his throat. "We could talk to Deaton."

Derek grimaces. He hates talking to Deaton. Deaton always finds a fantastic way to make him feel incompetent and undeserving of his rank.

"No," Derek says, and that's that. "Buy the books if you want, but tell me where the witch is."

They do.

"But get this," Erica adds later. She and Derek are outside then, leaning against the Camaro, and Boyd is still inside purchasing the books. "Before we found where the witch lives, Boyd tracked her to another house."

Derek nods. "Okay. So, witches have friends."

"Witches don't usually hang out with hunters, Derek. The house—it belongs to the Kembries."

Derek's back goes stiff as his wolf prepares to tear apart prey. As soon as it was out of her mouth all of it made sense. The witch's untimely arrival, her obnoxious but harmless activity that only accomplished getting on their radar, her direct attack. "She's working with them," he bites out. "They wanted to take out Stiles."

"Figured that much out for myself, weird enough." Erica sighs. "The only thing we can do right now is hope that we can get him back to his old self before the meeting next week. If he's still…pre-wolf Stiles, I don't think we stand a shot. One look at him and they'd know he wasn't himself. One awkward shift, one word out of place."

"I'm gonna kill her."

"Which would give the Kembries an excuse to take your head off—don't do anything stupid just yet." Erica purses her lips. "We have time."

The drive back to his house is needlessly tense. Derek seems to have jumped with both feet onto the let's-not-let-Stiles-in bandwagon; he's barely looked his way. When they get there Stiles doesn't really expect Derek to stay, he barely expects him to spare him a glance before he walks inside but then his dad pulls up right next to them and says, "Evening boys, you're staying for dinner?" Stiles looks over Derek's shoulder at his dad and he doesn't really get the question he's letting hang, like why is it even a question that Stiles would stay?

Derek's hands are tight around the steering wheel and his jaw is tense but he takes a breath and turns his head. "Sure thing. Should we pick something up, sir?"

His dad looks suddenly unimpressed. "Sir? You're not very good at hiding when you screw things up, Derek. Do I want to know?"

Stiles might be hallucinating or maybe Derek actually just laughed. "No, sir."

"Stiles can cook, can't you?" His dad leans over the seat to tilt his eyes towards Stiles. "Lasagna?"

The corner of Derek's mouth twitches up a bit before he fights it back into a line. He turns to Stiles and his eyes say enough—play along.

Stiles nods. "Yeah, sure, Dad."

And his dad smiles before pulling into the garage, leaving the two sitting in the driveway in the Jeep.

"What is that about?" Stiles hisses.

"He likes me."

"He _likes_ you? You look like the poster child for bad boy with a motorcycle."

Derek snorts like he forgets he's supposed to be a hard-ass. "I'm a little too old to be a poster child."

Stiles watches his hands flail and has little control over them. "That too! He can't like you! You're a criminally sexy older man."

And Derek—Derek actually turns to Stiles and grins one of those shit-eating grins, but it's one that makes Stiles' skin crawl. This is a power play. This is Derek at his most dangerous, when he's angry and weak and trying to assert himself as dominant. Whatever is about to come out Derek's mouth, Stiles knows he isn't going to like it.

"There was actually nothing criminal about it—you were the one who told him I wasn't going to fuck you until you turned 18."

Stiles actually splutters because in other circumstances, maybe if he was that other guy who seems to be so damn in charge of his life, maybe it'd be a good laugh. But all Derek is doing is throwing it in his face, the fact that he's not all that aware of his real age, that he doesn't remember this admittedly confusing relationship or losing his virginity or talking about these things with his dad. And in what universe does he talk about these things with his dad? These things like werewolves and older men and waiting until the age of consent? "Has anyone told you today that you're an ass?"

Derek winks. "Only you, babe."

And then he kills the engine and shoves open the door, the smile falling off his face so quickly that in the time it takes Stiles to blink, it's already gone. Eventually Stiles realizes that he has to follow—because if his dad is suspicious then everything will fall to shit and, honestly, he cannot deal with that—and so he does, staying only a step behind Derek the whole time.

Derek gives one of those handshake/hug/clap things to his dad and it's so far past bizarre that Stiles just starts looking for things to start dinner with instead. He wishes he could send them away but part of him is curious to understand what this is like, what his father and his boyfriend are like. And there's a concept he never thought he'd have to think about.

"Whatever this is," his dad says, "is it something I need to be on the lookout for?"

Derek is silent for a minute and when Stiles spares a glance he sees he's working on a goddamn salad while he ponders on that. "Not for now. We'll let you know."

"Are you guys heading back into the woods tonight?" Stiles can practically feel his dad burning a gaze into the back of his neck, but he stays focused on grating cheese. "Just so I know whether or not to have the hospital on speed dial?"

"Probably not tonight," Derek tells him.

"Are you staying here?"

Stiles chokes on the sip of water he just took because, no, Derek is _not_ staying—not at all. That car ride—with the rejection and the tension—was the worst moment of his life so far, and he is not repeating all of that just to make sure his dad thinks everything is hunky-dory in their romantic life.

"No," Stiles says, turning around to face the two of them. "Not tonight. Derek has stuff to do, don't you?"

Derek is all fucking smiles as he shakes his head, all soft and gentle and it's all _lies_, vicious lies. "No, you're thinking about Thursday. I've got nowhere else to be tonight."

The asshole even gives this little playful shrug when his dad sighs. "You make sure everything is the way I left it when I come back for breakfast alright?"

Panic floods Stiles in an instant. "You're working the night shift?"

"I'll be home at 7. And I can probably nap in the holding cells when things are quiet." He shrugs like it's inevitable. "Don't worry—I promise to bring the healthy whole-wheat snacks." He makes a face. Stiles doesn't believe him for a second.

Derek setting the table belongs in wildlife documentaries about weird and unnatural behavior. "Did you run out of trail mix? You know you just have to ask, I run out of ways to keep Isaac occupied sometimes."

His dad's eyes light up and Stiles just sits against the countertop refusing to internalize that in two years this has become his life. "No, no you're right, I still have some stashed in the pantry. The last batch Boyd brought in was industrial sized."

All Stiles can think is _really_? Like, really? This is how Derek freaking Hale and his father talk? Because it's just three hundred degrees to the left of normal, but then again he thinks about the werewolves and the witches and the angry hunters and figures, yeah. Not that strange.

That reminds him.

"Lasagna is baking," Stiles says, and grabs his backpack from the other side of the counter. "I need to go work on, um, studying. So, take it out in thirty, a little longer; I don't know, just until it gets hot—cut it up, eat."

The Sheriff arches an eyebrow at him. "I think I know how to eat dinner, Stiles."

Stiles feels like a little child but he sits at the top of the stairs and he spies. He realizes they're probably waiting for him to walk into his room so he pretends to do just that. And then sneaks back to the stairs 15 minutes later.

"Whatever he's studying, is it going to tear a hole in my basement?"

Derek's laugh is quiet and familiar and it makes him feel stupidly warm inside. "Purely theoretical and strategic, I promise."

His dad hums and he hears the scrapes of chairs on the kitchen tiles. "So you going to tell me what all of that was about or what?"

"Lover's spat?" Derek sounds like he doesn't even want to try.

"My ass."

Derek sighs, big and loud and Stiles thinks he can feel it in his bones. "It's a lot of crap. It's just sooner than later that he had to realize that. I think...maybe he's just been caught up in all of it too long, not enough time to realize, but maybe he's found a moment to think about it and..."

Stiles realizes with a twist in his gut that he confession isn't a lie. That this mess, this lapse of memory, that Derek sees that as a way for Stiles to ask for an out.

He wants to stand up and say no. Because, sure, a half hour ago he was upset that Derek was being an ass and his dad was being his boyfriend's best friend, but right now… Right now the only he wants is to go downstairs and pull him into a hug and tell him everything is alright, even though he knows it's probably not his place.

"He loves you. He'll come around."

"We've had this fight a dozen times. I don't… I think maybe this time he's fed up."

"What exactly is this fight?" His dad snorts. "Oh—don't give me that look, Derek. We're past that. You think he's going to want out of the entire werewolf life? You think my son can do that?"

"I'm not trying to push him away," Derek mumbles like a reprimanded child.

"Except you are."

A chair squeals as it's dragged back. "But how far is too far? How involved is he going to get until he asks for the bite?"

"He wouldn't ask for that. You know I don't think there's anything wrong with it," his father sighs, "it's just not in him to want it."

Derek sounds all but defeated. "At this point I think if he thought it was in the benefit of the pack..."

"Is that the real problem here?" his dad asks as he would a kid he'd brought in to the station for a piece of advice. "You think he does more for the pack than you do?"

Derek laughs, but it's cold and harsh. "Oh, I _know_ he does."

"It's Stiles. What do you expect?"

"I wish, just for once, he would be a little selfish. I would he would think about himself and what he wants, rather than sacrificing everything for what we want."

There's the sound of a heavy sigh, but Stiles can't tell who it's from. Then, "You love him. And he's a part of your pack. So you take him in, you let him do what he wants, and you make sure he stays safe while he does it."

"Yes."

"Good—then that's all there is to it."

"Except…"

"Except what?"

Derek sounds somewhere between desperate and terrified. "What if I can't keep him safe? He's already better at protecting everyone than I am, you know he carried Danny two miles back to the house? Danny, passed out, think about that. So if he does my job better than I do who says that I can look after him like I should have... like I should...do."

Stiles digs his fingers into his knees, his head spinning.

He can't be this person. He can't be better than Derek. He can't be better than anyone. That's not who he is.

"You're an Alpha," Stiles' dad says, "and you're a young one at that. And Stiles—Stiles is Stiles. And you learn from him just as much as he learns from you. You know that."

"I think that's the problem, I don't know that. And the guy he fell for? That guy knew everything." The oven dings and he hears someone move things and set the tray down on the table and nothing at all is making sense.

"And that isn't the same guy now? What's changed?"

"Everything."

"…what about the way you feel about him? Has that changed?"

"Yeah," he says like it's the most ironic thing in the world. "Sometimes I put him before my pack now." There's a heavy pause and Stiles can't imagine, can't even visualize a world where this is a conversation anyone is having with his father, doesn't understand the way his dad doesn't back away from it all. Like he honestly wants Derek to talk.

Derek's voice is soaked in a mix of shock and shame.

"I shouldn't have said that."

"Why not, if you meant it?"

And Stiles just—he can't. He can't deal with it. He can't live with it, with knowing that this is it, that this is what Derek is so afraid of, of loving him, and it stirs up these emotions inside of him that he doesn't even know how to name because in his mind, he's only had his first kiss hours ago. It feels like the longest day in the history of days. He's had his first kiss, learned about werewolves, Scott's hot girlfriend, and hunter treaties in less than twelve hours and he feels…

He feels right. He feels comfortable. Because even though his heart is beating too fast and he's panicking out of his mind, he feels like this is normal.

He's starting to remember.

And he gasps.

He can hear Derek freeze downstairs.

It's not like watching a movie, it's more like tugging the answer for a test out of your brain. There's rain and it's cold against his back but there's the encompassing warmth of Derek pressed against him with his teeth teasing along his jaw and Derek's hand on his hip and then there's only the wall opposite the one he's leaning on. His heart wants to beat out of his chest and downstairs he can hear his father asking if Stiles is okay and he adds it to the ever expanding lists of things that don't make sense.

"Yes, he's fine, I just..."

"I'll head out early, call me if you need anything."

"But—dinner."

"I'll take it to go. Seriously—call me."

Stiles is shaking just slightly when he registers that the front door has closed and his father is gone. And in the blink of an eye, Derek is right there in front of him on the steps, blinking at him.

Stiles swallows. "Um. Hi."

"You were listening." It's not a question. Stiles doesn't answer it. And then—"Are you okay?"

He can't help it. He's staring at Derek with something that is probably akin to moony-eyed wonder and it's like there's a string. There's a string attached to Derek and the end of it is tied in knots around his heart and—that's what a mate is like, Stiles thinks. That—that feeling. That's something that is just…hitting him. So hard. And he doesn't want it to stop.

Derek kneels in front of him and maybe he can try but not fully understand because the feeling isn't new to him. It grew slow and strong and now it lives in him and it's an irreplaceable chunk. "Stiles, take a deep breath; are you okay?"

Stiles shakes his head. "No—no, I think—I think I just…remembered."

Derek blinks. "Remembered? Everything?"

"No," he says, and he hates the way Derek's shoulders deflate. "Not everything. Just…you."

"Me?"

Stiles' eyes flicker down to his lips. "It was just, like, a glimpse, but there was rain and you were touching me and—and kissing me and—"

Derek cups Stiles' jaw in his hands. "Stiles. Breathe."

"I don't want to leave you, Derek. I could never leave you."

"You don't know that. You don't know all of it."

"I don't need that. I saw you. I…it's you. Out of context but still you. I don't need to know anything else, I hadn't left you when I knew everything so what changed now?"

He takes a deep breath and tries to get Derek to understand something that even he can't wrap his mind around.

"Because you love them, because…because you're Stiles and Stiles always wants to help." He half smiles, bringing up Scott's words. "Because you're the only one amazing enough to scare the shit out of fanged and clawed creatures and armed hunters with a baseball bat and you're bitchy with your mouth and you found a bunch of lost kids that need you and won't let you go. You love and look where it's gotten you so far."

"It's gotten me to you." Stiles blinks up at him. "Right? Isn't that—don't I have you?"

Derek presses their foreheads together and breathes, "Of course you have me, but you don't need me and right now you don't _know_ me and I think...you just cut your losses and go." He says it like he means it and he really thinks he does, but he doesn't let go.

"I won't go," Stiles says immediately, "I won't. I don't want to. I want to learn about this, about us. Please—I—please, don't make me go."

"I'm not going to make you go, Stiles. It's like cutting off my own arm," Derek says, with an adorably wistful smile.

"…so, you're going to stay then?"

Derek nods. "Yes."

Without words, Derek helps Stiles onto his feet, trying to ignore the way Stiles clings at his shoulders in an overly friendly way. Since that morning, the floodgates have opened. Stiles recognizes his attraction now, and he's an eighteen-year-old boy with a sixteen-year-old brain, and—oh. Does that put him below the age of consent?

Derek stops walking, halted right outside Stiles' room.

That changes things.

"Your brain is going in the wrong direction again," Stiles says, pulling away to lean on the door frame.

Derek takes a breath in and shakes his head. "It's just you're young, no matter how old your body is and... I'm gonna sleep in the Jeep."

Stiles is pretty sure his face is expressing something along the lines of how-the-hell-did-you-get-there. "The Jeep?"

"Your dad might come down and find me on the couch," he says, taking a step back.

"So? Do you normally—you normally sleep…in my bed with me? And my dad's okay with that?" He's completely awake now—except, no, not really, because he's leaning into Derek fully—and he looks shocked. "Does my dad know that we…? I mean, have we? We've…done it?"

Derek isn't entirely sure if he wants to laugh or cry or just hide from Stiles right now. He's asking him if they're "done it" when Stiles has previously enjoyed looking for new and creative ways of letting the pack know they fucked regularly, and seeing him oblivious to that now is heartbreaking, yes, but it also makes him want to pull Stiles close and never let him go. In any case, he's going to try to move right along, even though there isn't much hope because it's Stiles after all. "If your dad saw me on the couch, that would mean you had kicked me out of bed. And when you do that, I usually go home and I'm not leaving you alone. So let me grab my pillow and I'll be in the Jeep."

"No." Stiles puts a hand on Derek's chest instinctively. "You don't have to. I mean—I'm cool with it. With you in my bed."

"Stiles, you think you're 16—"

"It doesn't matter. Really. I mean, I'm not all hunky-dory with, um, _everything_, right now, but just sharing a bed seems pretty…innocent." He gulps just barely and Derek doesn't know whether or grin or run away. "The Jeep isn't comfortable, trust me—wait. _Your_ pillow? You…have a pillow. You stay here. Regularly. With me. While my dad is out." His eyes go wide. "Oh, my God, I'm getting laid on a regular basis and my dad doesn't even care."

Derek closes his eyes and counts to ten. "No, Stiles, your dad doesn't care. Unless we break something, in which case I have to pay him for it even though most times it's your fau—look, it doesn't matter. I'll sleep on the floor."

"Dude." Stiles grins. "We break stuff? Man, we are totally awesome at sex."

Derek arches an eyebrow.

And so Stiles leans forward, farther into him, and kisses the corner of his mouth, because, well, he can. "Don't sleep on the floor." He nuzzles into Derek's neck, sliding his hands down Derek's ribcage and settling on his hips. "It's okay. Really. I promise. I like…this."

Derek's hands move to cover his and pry them off. "Stiles, I…" He looks up at Stiles' hopeful face, the curiosity and lust and the terrifying innocence there. But it looks off and out of place on his mate's body. In two years he hasn't grown much taller or become muscle-bound but he's changed, his limbs have a sleek and unexpected strength, the lean legs on which he could run for miles or cling to Derek's hips, the powerful arms that could carry someone to safety or brace him against the bed. Every inch of his freckled since is different and looks at odds with the younger thought that project in his eyes.

Stiles keeps blinking, and his eyelids stay down for longer periods of time with every flutter and so Derek sighs, supporting most of Stiles' weight as he moves the boy to his bed. Stiles gets his pants off with lazy kicks, eyes completely closed now, and Derek watches as the boy slithers up the bed.

"I've never been naked in front of anyone before," he says. "I mean—not at 16. So." His hand fists in his own T-shirt for a moment. Then, opening his eyes, he sits up and finds Derek's gaze. Derek is at the foot of his bed, staring. Their eyes lock while Stiles shrugs off the flannel he has over the T-shirt, and when that's done, Stiles blinks.

"C'mere."

"I shouldn't."

"Do big, scary Alphas cuddle?"

Derek licks his lips and thinks that yes, yes, they do, but they also eat you up. He climbs in bed without taking so much as his shirt off, kicking off his boots as an afterthought.

Stiles scoots off to the side of his tiny bed, watching, and when Derek lies down, so does he, resting his head on the pillow right to Derek's. After a moment of blinking at each other, Stiles closes his eyes, breathes heavily, and then he's numb. He's exhausted. It's been a long day—too long—and he needs sleep. He needs a very long bout of sleep.

He rolls over onto his stomach, because that's how he sleeps, and shoves his leg over so that it's hooked over Derek's. It's not ideal, but it's something, and when Derek's hand tentatively strokes down the back of his neck, he smiles into the pillow like a sixteen-year-old with a crush.

When Stiles wakes up, he's only about 29% sure he's not dreaming because he's wrapped up in Derek Hale's demigod arms, the man's hair sticking up everywhere, and his morning boner is impressive enough to startle a meep out of Stiles and send him into stunned silence.

Derek's response is to pull him closer, nuzzle at the back of his neck, and arch his hips.

Stiles is still pretty out of it, eyes still fuzzy and body still tingly, and so he recognizes his own issue in his pants and—shit, that's totally because of Derek. Because somehow, between falling asleep and waking up, there was groping.

And apparently Stiles was totally into it.

That, or his body is still popping morning wood at eighteen, which he thinks is definitely possible as well, yes. Actually, it's probably both.

"Warm," Derek whispers. "Mm, Stiles."

Derek's hand is splayed over Stiles' abs and holy shit, he has abs. He feels them tight and lean under Derek's fingertips, the stretch as he clenches and releases the muscle there. Derek's other arm is hanging off the bed, Stiles' hand in his. Stiles can't help but be awake and hyperaware of his body now, all the things about it he can't say off the top of his head, the things it can do that he wouldn't even dream of. He wonders what he looks like to other people, to Scott, to his new friends, to Derek…

Derek.

Derek is touching him.

Derek is most likely still half asleep, snuffling and nuzzling and sucking just lightly on the back of Stiles' neck and he moans, so loudly, because it feels—it feels so good—

And then Derek freezes.

Stiles waits, his heart pumping too loud and his breath coming too fast, because this is—this is weird. This is different. This is a dude, with a dick, and yeah, Stiles is sort of starting to come to the realization that dudes are awesome and chicks are awesome and people are just really fucking pretty in general, but he's only very rarely thought about getting it on with a dude. Who has a dick.

He knows, theoretically, how everything would work because the internet is his friend, but he doesn't know how it all really…goes. Like, does Derek just plop him onto his stomach and stick it inside of him? Is that supposed to feel good? Porn says yes.

But before Stiles can finish his inner ramblings, Derek is gone, off the other side of the bed and stalking towards the door.

"Hey—wait!" He sits up, frantically trying to readjust blankets and his boxers because he kind of really wants to follow Derek and try to convince him to come back to bed.

Derek turns around. He's still in his jeans and black T-shirt, and he looks a little less menacing because of some wrinkles in his shirt and the every-which-way thing his hair has going on. But damn if Stiles still isn't ridiculously attracted to him.

"Don't go," Stiles tells him.

"I'll stay close."

"Stay here."

Derek shakes his head. "No—I can't."

"Dude, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm kind of more gung-ho about dick right now than I was last night, so it's not really an issue."

Derek looks like he wants to run but can't, so Stiles gets up on his knees and reaches out. He keeps his eyes on Derek, his arm outstretched, but Derek refuses to look back at him.

"Derek, you really have to quit the guilt trip. It's giving me whiplash."

"I said no, Stiles. No more of this. Not until you remember."

"I remember enough. I remember this. Most of this."

Derek shakes his head again, firmly, and clenches his hands into fists. "No," he says emphatically. And then his head is lifted but his eyes aren't on Stiles'. His ear twitches. "Your dad's home."

Stiles feels oddly indignant and cold, and he flops back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Awesome, maybe he'll give you some toast on your way out."

Derek stands still for a moment longer, wanting to fix the tension in the air, but he can't try without inevitably making things worse, so he mutters, "I'll stay close; don't forget to study," and walks out the door.

He passes the Sheriff on the stairs.

"Don't leave on my account," the man says, looking dead on his feet. "I'm just going to collapse."

Derek is set on leaving, but seeing the Sheriff unexpectedly takes momentum out of him. "Your son…" He hugs and swipes a hand over his face.

The Sheriff gives a short, exhausted laugh. "That bad?"

"Yes," is Derek's simple answer. "That bad."

With a frown, he asks, "Well, nothing you two can't fix, right? I mean… How bad's the damage?"

Derek licks his lips and follows the Sheriff down the stairs at his prompting before plopping down on the sofa. It's not like he hasn't noticed that sometimes the guy is easy to talk to, that he's wise for his age and reminds Derek of his dad. "It about as screwed up as it can get."

"Your fault or his?"

"…that's a really good question."

The Sheriff grins, sitting down next to Derek. "I'm full of those."

"I think the werewolf bit makes it my fault, just…on principle." He manages a small smile for the man, just to lessen his worry.

The Sheriff laughs. "I think that excuse is getting a bit old. And I also doubt he's ever really thrown that in your face."

Derek sighs. "No, you're right. He hasn't. But…"

"Why do you keep thinking he's going to get sick of you?" It's a question that seemingly comes out of nowhere, and Derek doesn't have an immediate response. "He's been with you for this long, through thick and thin. He's crazy about you. He doesn't do anything but spend time with you and your pack, and he's never truly complained about it—not once. But you think he's unhappy."

Derek sets his head back and looks up at the ceiling. They'd had to patch it up last summer; you could still see the swabs of paint. "Because…." He closes his eyes. He should draw lines and not share things and remember whose father this really is but sometimes he misses the easy reassurance of someone who knows better. Besides, no one could understand loving Stiles more than him. "Because we can't want the same thing. He was just a kid, dammit. He's still just a kid and I want him for myself and for my pack and I think… I want him forever. And it's not right for him; I'm not right for him. He's everything good and strong in the world, he'd be a better Alpha than I would, and God knows he's a better man."

There's only a brief moment of consideration from the Sheriff before he speaks.

"First of all—bullshit. You're making excuses. You '_can't'_ want the same thing but apparently you do. And he was a kid, but now he's a man, as much as he acts like a five-year-old, and you two are as right for each other as anyone could ever be. Derek…" Derek looks at him, hands trembling just slightly. "He wants you forever, too. And you know it. But you're chickening out. So cut the crap, man up, and stop giving him reasons to leave you just because you're scared he will."

And then, because the Sheriff always makes him feel like a child, he asks what he really wants to know. "Do you think he'd be able to love me if we hadn't gone through all this crap together? If we just met and liked each other like normal people with the exception of a little bit of lycanthropy, do you think he could love me anyway?"

He doesn't even hesitate. "Yes." Then he stands, pats Derek on the shoulder, and says, "Go apologize to him," before dragging himself up the stairs towards his bedroom.

By the time he makes it back up to the bedroom, the light is coming through the window and he has a steaming cup of tea in his hand. "Your dad is under the impression that I'm an idiot."

Stiles snorts. He's sitting up against the headboard of his bed, Allison's folders in his lap and his own iPad in his hand. "Well, he gets it right every once in a while."

Derek takes the iPad and hands Stiles the mug of tea. "I'm freaking out. I'm sorry."

"You should be." The tea is warm and soothing even through the mug and Stiles just holds it for a moment, watching Derek. "It's been one day, Derek. One whole day and some change—and we've fought at least, like, four times. We can't always be like this. We're not always like this, are we?"

"You've got more ammunition to work with and I'm less scared to death so yeah, we don't fight as much." He leans close and grabs one of the folders, flipping through it idly. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but he tries to imagine seeing it all for the first time. "You're one of a kind," he says. "Nothing like you has ever happened before. I'm worried, we all are, that it was…a special combination of events."

Stiles takes the folder back and Derek meets his gaze. "So, what? You think I'm not me anymore because I haven't gone through everything that…that I've gone through?" He frowns. "Oh, that's not confusing at all."

"I don't know," he sighs, "I'm not sure. But I think it's stupid to test things out with a bunch of fucking hunters."

"So we could test other things first." Stiles swallows tightly. "Like… Like, I remembered you, right? I remembered how we're, y'know, _us_, and so maybe I can remember other things, too."

Derek nods and climbs onto the bed. "Alright, things like what?"

Stiles blinks. "Um. Things like…pack stuff. Ask me about pack stuff."

He blinks up at the ceiling. "I guess I should ask you something that isn't in the folders… Who are the other humans in the pack?"

Stiles licks his lips, sucks in a breath. "Allison—definitely Allison, right? And…Lydia." It's weird, thinking about her now, in any context, because for the first time in years—as far as sixteen-year-old Stiles is concerned—he's spent all of his naughty thoughts on someone who is decidedly not…her.

"And Danny," Derek says, trying not to sound discouraged. "But…well, he's a recent addition so I guess…"

"Danny?" Stiles sits up straighter. "Really? He just…he loves staying out of things."

"Yeah, well." He shrugs. "He loves Jackson more."

Stiles nods shortly. "Okay. So, not so hot yet. Keep asking."

He thinks for a moment. Then, "Kanima. Does it ring any bells?"

"Lizard," Stiles says immediately, and his eyes go wide when the word is out. "Um—yeah. Lizard. Person. Thing. And…something about a master?"

Derek resists the overwhelming urge to kiss him.

"And…" Stiles' eyes are closed, beautifully, like he's remembering, "water. There's something about water." Stiles can't say he remembers but he feels the ache in his arms and the water closing in around him, around them.

"You're remembering," Derek breathes, so soft that Stiles barely registers the sound.

He opens his eyes. "Yeah." He smiles a little, self-conscious. "Yeah, I guess."

Derek wants then, he wants him to remember everything now that he knows the memories are locked away and not really gone. He's on his hands and knees, all but climbing onto Stiles. "What else do you remember?"

Stiles' mouth is open. "Um. That—that's it, I think. I mean, I remember some, um, snippets. Like woods. Running through woods. And Allison with a crossbow. And some black smoke stuff. Just things that come and go. Nothing's solid."

Derek tightens, every part of him, his muscles and his heart. The black smoke isn't a snippet in his mind, it's not just one more of their adventures, not another bad day. It was the worst kind of torture.

Stiles can see it in his eyes. Stiles can see the pain, and he opens his mouth to ask about it, when something hits him.

Derek. Like that—on all fours, leaning over him. Except it's a different setting. It's an older building, a little more worn, and it registers immediately in his mind that it's Derek's place, Derek's bedroom, and in his mind's eye, Derek is smiling at him. Derek is leaning closer. Derek is kissing him. And then Derek is whispering, "I love you, Stiles."

And as if he's suddenly outside of the scene, looking in, he watches himself grin, flushed with happiness, before saying, "I love you too."

He blinks to find that Derek is looking into his eyes, searching for something. "I don't care if you don't remember, Stiles; just that you're you."

Stiles' only thought is—it's too soon. It's really too soon. Everything is too fast and shouldn't it be spread out? Shouldn't he be remembering this in a couple of more days, or maybe weeks or something? This isn't… This is too much.

Still, it doesn't stop him from shoving off the bed and launching himself onto Derek, grabbing his face between his hands and planting a big, wet kiss right on his mouth.

Derek grabs on to him and pulls him close, nipping at his soft lips. He should hold back and walk away and give him space but he can't; it's stupid anyway. He doesn't really care if Stiles doesn't remember as long as he knows. And Stiles always knows what he wants.

Stiles squirms into his lap, kissing him so fiercely and so desperately that he can't even catch his breath, doesn't want to, and it's awesome. It's hot and it makes Stiles feel hot, like he's doing something right, something that makes Derek hot, and, God, making out is so much fun.

Stiles tastes like orange tea and the extra spoonful of sugar and like lingering toothpaste and like Stiles. It makes the blood boil and hum in his veins and it fogs his mind, it licks at his anguished, lonely beast and makes it growl, "Mine."

He must have said that out loud, too, because Stiles is groaning and nodding and saying, "Yes, yes, yours."

Derek licks into his mouth slowly, pulling away. "Stiles."

"We're allowed to kiss now. I'm remembering."

"Stiles—this isn't—there's more."

Stiles nods. "Yeah, yeah, of course." He kisses at Derek's lips distractedly. "Totally."

"There's more than just…us. There's the pack. There's Scott."

"Right, more. There's more than us. Of course." But he can't stop pecking at Derek's lips, at his jaw, and he can't stop running his hands along Derek's hair, down his neck. "Except, no. There's nothing more important than us right now—not to me."

And Derek understands that. For a sixteen-year-old who's been teased and kissed and destroyed over and over again in 24 hours, it's exactly what he expects. When they had first started this, it was all they could do to keep their hands off each other and now Stiles has another go at it. He needs to relearn Derek's body. He needs to relearn a lot.

Derek mouths at the edge of his jaw and gives what sounds like a small whine. "You're impossible."

He lays his hand flat at the base of Stiles' back and pulls him close, as close as he can. It's the most comforting sound in the world, the sound of Stiles' heart beating frantically to keep up with the touch of their lips or the sensations on their skin.

"You love me," Stiles says, pressing his mouth wherever he can. "You love me."

"Stiles."

"We can totally do this, Derek. I'll remember. The witch—whatever she did to me doesn't even matter because I'm remembering and everything will work out and we'll save the day." He nudges his mouth against Derek's, trying to kiss him without having to open his eyes and find exactly where he is. "God, Derek."

Derek moves forward and follows Stiles as he falls onto his back. He sucks on the skin between his neck and shoulder until the flesh is pink and well on its way to bruising. He thinks, _Of course I love you_, but he can't bring himself to say it out loud.

He runs his arm down Stiles' side and feels him shiver at the touch.

"I shouldn't—we shouldn't."

"I want to."

"Your body wants to—your body understands, but you can't—you'll regret it."

He pulls away just far enough to look at his eyes. "Who in their mind would regret you? Have you seen you?"

Derek shakes his head too quickly, fighting the smile that's threatening to grow on his lips. "No, Stiles—I just mean, this isn't how you want your first…" He breaks off, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "To you, it's your first time. You don't want it like this. Trust me."

Stiles takes in an almost shocked breath but holds Derek's face in his hands. "Like what? In my bed? With the guy that I love and loves me back? In the only situation that makes sense to me in this shitty mess? What's wrong with it?"

Derek stares. Blinks. "You—you said. Do you? Do you mean it? Do you feel it?"

Stiles strokes his thumbs across Derek's cheeks. "I—I think so. Yeah. I… I can feel…something."

And so Derek captures Stiles' hands and holds them in his own in between their chests. "Stiles. Your dad is down the hall, you've barely survived a day of learning about werewolves and hunters and politics, and you're remembering, yes. But there's more. There's so much more. And there are more important things right now." He licks his lips. "We have to talk to the rest of the pack. Erica has…information."

Stiles leans back. He may be sixteen (or eighteen, depending on how you look at it), but he's not a hormonally-driven zombie…more of the time. As long as Derek has stopped shoving him away he can calm down and listen to more pressing matters. That doesn't mean he's going to let Derek get away. He holds one of Derek's hands in both of his. "About the witch?"

Derek nods. "Yes. But there's more. We're going to brief the pack all together."

"The mate doesn't get special privileges?"

With a slight smile, Derek leans back in and kisses him just gently, just a ghost of a peck on his lips, because he wants to. "You do. More than you know."

But once he's focused on non-sexy topics they seem to all flood back to him. "Derek, you still haven't explained what I'm supposed to do about those hunters. I mean, I get the treaty. It's—yeah, it makes sense, but it doesn't say what the hell I'll supposed to do to make them agree to it. Or why you and Allison think only I can do it."

"Because you can. Because it's just what you do—you're as much a part of this pack as I am, Stiles, but you're human, too. The Kembries…don't like you for that, but they respect you. You have an incredible mind, and you're so compassionate. You know how to fix things, Stiles. It's what you do."

He grins. "Whoa, slow down, big guy. People might think you actually like me."

Derek smiles and leans his head in to breathe him in. It should be odd to Stiles, someone like Derek being such a damn puppy, but it isn't. "I can't teach you what to do. It's just…you. But when you're at your fiercest, it's because you're reacting to or preventing a threat to the pack and that… I don't know if you can fake that."

"Scott is my best friend," Stiles mutters, watching the way Derek's eyes dart back and forth between his own. "And Lydia is amazing. And Allison—if Scott likes her, then I like her. Boyd has always been fairly decent to me, and Erica and Isaac are…" He trails off. "I… There's time, right? I have time? Maybe by the time the treaty needs to be signed, I'll have my memory back. Maybe, if we get that witch…"

Derek just looks at him. Yes, maybe if they get that witch… Maybe.


	3. Desiderio Cordis

_**Desiderio Cordis**_**: Desire of the Heart**

Stiles doesn't expect a pack meeting to be an actual meeting but it is. It's probably Lydia's fault. He can see them all through the open window and God, Lydia looks different and exactly the same all at once. She's typing away furiously and snapping at people over her shoulder and every so often she takes a drink of coffee and reaches for Jackson's hand. Everyone is milling around keeping occupied, examining the color-coded schedule on the whiteboard next to Allison or looking at a map or having something to eat.

When they walk in, everyone stops and stares and it's unbelievably awkward until Lydia jumps out of her chair and wraps herself around him. "You freaking idiot." She pulls away and smacks him over the head. "It's not all claws and teeth—you know that."

Stiles just blinks. He feels like he should say something, like he should feel an overwhelming desire to sweep her off her feet because she's Lydia freaking Martin—and he kind of does, just not really in the way he thinks he's supposed to—but all that comes to mind is a sarcastic, "Of course. There's that awful werewolf breath, too."

She rolls her eyes and shoves him back towards where Derek is looming, because there just isn't another word for it. "If you took a break from looking after the puppies for five minutes and made yourself the charm I told you about…but whatever. We need to fix this. Now."

He can see Boyd and Erica somewhere behind Jackson and they look, well…like kicked puppies. "He's not fixed yet?"

"Not quite," Derek says, taking a step forward. He's right behind Stiles now, just ghosting over the back of him, and it's stress-inducing and comforting at the same time. "But we've survived 24 hours; we can survive a few more."

Erica cocks her head. "What do you mean 'not quite'? Is there…any change?"

Stiles feels a little culpable, like he's the one slowing the whole operation. He shouldn't feel like it's his fault, he knows that logically, but that doesn't help his guilt.

"I remember some, bits and pieces. I guess it's like I'm missing something huge that would make everything easier to remember, but…" He shrugs and looks down at his feet. "But I've read up on everything."

Scott steps out of the kitchen. "That's awesome, dude. You're going to be fine."

Jackson clears his throat off to the side. "Are you alright, though? I mean pixie dust amnesia aside."

Stiles is all at once struck with an immense desire to be snide—because Jackson can't really be checking up on his well-being, not the Jackson he knows—but he pushes it down when Derek slides a hand over the small of his back. It's not the Jackson from two years ago. This is a different Jackson. And Stiles guesses they're kind of like friends now.

He nods stiffly. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Derek puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. "Where's Isaac?"

"I'm here!" Isaac backs into the house with, like, seven boxes of pizza and some Chinese takeout on top.

Scott smiles like it's Christmas. "Isaac, bro, you're my man."

Stiles scoffs. "I thought I was your man!"

Derek wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him into his chest, growling softly, "No, you're mine."

Stiles is sure he's blushing, and he doesn't miss the way all of the girls are looking at him, sizing up the situation. But he ignores them, settling back into Derek's body and glancing at Scott briefly for a reaction.

Scott gives him a thumbs up.

"So you two are good then?" Lydia asks. "After only a day?"

Stiles' eyes dart over to Erica. "Some things don't go away just because you forget."

Boyd laughs and claps his hands together. "See? World's not gonna end. Can we get started?"

Everyone takes a seat around the table and Derek guides Stiles to a seat at the head of it, standing behind him with his hand still on the boy's shoulder. "Allison, break it down for everyone."

She nods. "So, there's something we need to discuss. Something that Stiles won't be able to convince them about is our…reproductive choices." Stiles' eyes go wide and several people choke on their food.

Erica takes it in stride. "So I'm guessing you, me, and Lydia need to be there to tell them that's none of their fucking business."

"Fortunately," Allison continues, "all members of the pack are included in the treaty, which would potentially protect any offspring that were born wolves. _Un_fortunately, this may be debated if the Kembries decide to bring it up. And this treaty needs to be precise—it needs to last for as long as we can make it."

Stiles sounds pained when he speaks up. "Does it…really need to be discussed right now? Hell, we've all barely graduated—we all graduated, right?" Everyone laughs but nods at him. "Right, so um. I mean, really?"

Scotts nods. "It does seem a little early to be talking about all this."

"Get the panicked look off your face, Scott; no one is talking about having babies right now." Allison sighs. "But they need to be talked about because, well, there are going to be a lot of us when that does start to happen."

"There are more pressing things to discuss," Derek says lightly, the power in his voice maintained but calm. "The Kembries have made it plain that they do not like Erica, so Lydia will go with Stiles to speak for that issue. Next topic."

Stiles resolutely does not pay attention to the fact that listening to Derek be a leader is totally doing something awesome for him.

Jackson leans forward. "Did you talk to them about protection for the pack when they're out of town?"

Lydia puts a hand over his and smiles softly. "They wouldn't hurt Danny."

Jackson pulls his hand away. "They wouldn't do anything to piss us off."

Derek nods. "Jackson is right. It needs to be nailed down. Danny's not the only one that's going to go to college. You'll take turns if you have to but you'll go. And there needs to be something set in stone about your safety when you're outside our land."

Lydia scribbles something down, her tongue poking out the corner of the mouth just slightly. "Noted. Stiles—you got that?"

"Yeah," he says, sounding like a little bit shaky. "Babies and protection detail."

Scott is shoveling his third pizza slice into his mouth before he says, "What about the witch? Do we need to tell them about the witch?"

"No," Derek and Allison say at the same time.

"Nope, they do not need to know Stiles isn't 100% his badass self right now," Allison clarifies.

Derek's hand is suddenly tighter on his shoulder. "Absolutely not. We can't send him in with that disadvantage—don't be an idiot."

"Alright, alright, jeez." Scott swallows the oversized bite of pizza. "What else do they need to know about?"

Erica raises an eyebrow at Derek. "Well, the hunters don't need to know, but should we share with the rest of the pack?"

Stiles looks over his shoulder. Derek is staring straight at Erica, his jaw clenched. "Share what?" Stiles asks. "Derek?"

"Boyd and I tracked the witch to two different locations in suburbia." Erica crosses her arms under her chest, looking at Derek expectantly. "One of them was her own place. One of them wasn't."

Allison shoots up in her seat. "I thought we had an agreement about side missions and not leaving people in the dark."

"It was yesterday when you were with Stiles," Derek explains. "Erica found…" He clears his throat. "The other house belongs to the Kembries. And we have a theory."

Erica snorts. "They hired the witch to get rid of Stiles' memory so that we'd be at a loss with the treaty. But it seems like she didn't do her job very thoroughly, since Stiles is remembering stuff."

"So not discussing the witch with them is actually about making them think that Stiles is out for the count," Isaac reasons.

Derek nods. "I think they're working on the theory that not knowing about…well, us, is that it'll make Stiles not really care about the benefit of the pack."

Erica leans farther back in her chair, looking pleased. "Which will make everything so much more impressive when he shows up there with a perfect memory. They won't know what to do with themselves."

Stiles licks his lips. "What about Derek?" He tilts his head up again. "You're coming with me, right? With Lydia and me?"

"I can't," he says, and he sounds genuinely broken up about it.

"He really can't," Allison agrees. "First, having a wolf there will make them defensive and we want to use their overconfidence against them. Second, it would undermine your power in the pack."

Boyd seems to agree. "What freaks them out is that you're the second Alpha in the pack."

"Even though I'm human," Stiles elaborates.

Boyd nods. "Even though you're human."

"So what do we do about the witch in the meantime?" he asks. "I mean, I guess we can't really go and get her or anything since the Kembries would find out. So are we just supposed to…leave her be?"

"We're watching her," Erica says. "If she tries to leave Beacon Hills, we'll make her stay. That way, when the Kembries find out that she failed in her task, they can deal with her themselves."

Derek grunts.

"I'll be dealing with her _my_self."

Stiles is more than his fair share of terrified but he needs to breathe through this. "Alright, is that it?"

Allison glances around the circle. "Yes. For now. How are you doing with your studying?"

"Working on it. I've covered everything once—now I just need to do some reinforcements."

"I'll help him," Derek says.

"That's probably not the best idea," Lydia drawls, looking down at her nails. "You'll distract him. Stiles needs focus. If you're in the room all he thinks about is sex."

Derek opens his mouth and snaps it shut again. Fucking Lydia. "It's not like he'd do any better with you in the room."

"I'll help him," Isaac says. "He never wants to bone me."

Stiles is barely recovering from the Lydia comment—thanks for throwing him under the bus, Derek, really—and so he blinks over at Isaac. "Oh. Yeah. Sure."

Derek squeezes his shoulder again, a little harder this time.

"What are you gonna do?" Stiles asks him.

"I'm actually going to go talk to Allison's dad," he says, and that seems to take even Allison by surprise.

"Why?" she asks. "I thought we weren't going to tell him about the witch either."

"There were things happening before the witch that will still happen after this is all solved. The world doesn't stop turning because more shit happens." He looks around the room. "Does anyone have anything else to bring up? Last chance."

There's silence as each of them looks around. When no speaks up, Isaac stands. "C'mon, dude. I'll show you the library—I remember the first time you saw how Derek had built it all up." He grins. "Your eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets."

Derek puts an arm around Stiles' waist when he stands. "Library?" Stiles licks his lips. "This place has a library?"

"Documents, research, folklore, records." Isaac looks back and forth between Derek and the boy in his arms. Stiles can tell that he's going to ask permission to take him from Derek.

"Sounds great," Stiles says, and shoves himself out of Derek's arms, because that's not how things work. Derek may be the Alpha, but there's no way in hell that means Stiles lives with letting Derek control him.

Before he goes off with Isaac, however, he turns and gives Derek a small kiss on the corner of his mouth. It makes his stomach do some fun swoops and Derek's warm hand lingers on his hip, but then he's following Isaac out of the room and leaving Derek to the rest of the pack.

Derek's tiny half smile turns into a growl when he hears Erica from somewhere behind him. "Aw, Daddy and Daddy are going to be alright."

Boyd and Jackson snort.

"Do we need to waste time with extra training tonight?" Derek snaps. "Because we can cancel dinner."

Scott whimpers and Derek smiles again. There. Hit them where it hurts.

"Meet here tonight at 6. Boyd, make sure Stiles and Isaac actually _work_." He lifts his eyebrows expectantly and waits for Boyd's nod. Then, he says, "Thank you, Lydia, Allison. I'll see you tonight."

And then he's gone.

-0-

Isaac keeps watching him. It's strange, Stiles thinks, but not annoying. He understands. He's still trying to work out Derek-related things in his head and he's forgotten about everything else—everyone else. Stiles figures he must be different than what Isaac is used to now, so… So things are strange.

"Sorry," Stiles says.

Isaac looks surprised. "What for?"

"I mean, I understand the pack is like family." He shrugs. "It'd suck if Scott forgot about me. So I'm sorry that whatever you're looking for didn't come back with the parts about wanting to climb Derek like a tree."

Isaac smirks. "Well, that part's at least a little bit comforting. You'll remember, though. I know you will." He licks his lips, leaning back into the cushion on the couch. "You're pretty good at taking care of us, you know. I think Erica and I would've died years ago if it hadn't been for you."

Stiles barks a laugh. "Right."

"I'm serious." Isaac leans forward again. "Look, Derek is great at slashing shit that wants to eat us before we can eat it, but he's not very good at…like…being attentive."

"And I am?"

"Yeah. You're—you're like our mom. Except with a dick."

Stiles arches an eyebrow. "Thank you for the distinction, I appreciate it."

"No, dude, I'm serious. Like. You know when to slow us down. You know how to make us chill out. You buy us stuff that makes us happy and you cook for us when we're sick. You organize Secret Santa at Christmas and you manage to make Derek a decent person, so you're kind of a superhero."

Stiles sort of preens at that. "Can I be Batman?"

Something flickers in Isaac's eyes, and he smiles a little wider. "Yeah, Stiles. You can be Batman."

He might get his hand bitten off, but he decides to dig his fingers into Isaac's curls and give them a little shake. Isaac seems pleased.

"Studying," the werewolf reminds him.

"Of course. Always studying. No rest for the amnesiac." He flips open the journal Isaac hands him. "What's this?"

"Records. They detail every creature we've encountered, what happened, how we fixed things." He points to the first page. "Kanima. That was our very first."

"My supernatural virginity. How quaint." Stiles chokes on air as he keeps reading. "Jackson?"

Isaac hums. "Yup."

"Jesus." Everything he reads just takes him further down the rabbit hole until—"What the fuck is this?"

It's forty minutes later, although it seems like time has just flown, and Isaac jerks awake, having sprawled out on the couch with his face pressed into the outside of Stiles' thigh. He sits up, checks his mouth for drool, and then shakes his head.

"Hm, what?"

Stiles holds the book out. "That."

It's written in a handwriting that's never been in the book so far, but Stiles can feel the flash of familiarity that comes with it. It's Derek's. Written in black ink, all swipes and curls and fast, desperate handwriting, like he had to get all of the thoughts out before they overwhelm him.

Isaac reads the first few lines. "Oh. That. Man, I'm glad I didn't have to go through that with you guys—that was when the demon possessed you."

Stiles remembers Derek telling him about that, remembers how much that destroyed him, just from the way he spoke, and so the shiver than runs down his spine is perfectly justified.

"Oh," Stiles says. "That."

"You wanted to write the account, since you had been the one to really, um, know the thing, but Derek wouldn't let you. You added a little bit a few pages later, but he wrote down the main things."

Stiles nods, looking down at the parts where the handwriting changes, the parts about taking responsibility and accepting that most of what the demon said was true.

"He blames himself." He almost whispers it, but Isaac has no trouble hearing.

"Yeah, that's Derek. It's sort of his thing." Isaac shrugs. "Guilt."

"Didn't I try to tell him it wasn't his fault? It—it wasn't, was it? I mean, it couldn't have been."

Isaac shakes his head. "Of course it wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's. Wrong place, wrong time, and you were vulnerable. Demons…like to pick on the vulnerable."

"So why did he write this?"

Isaac sighs. "'Cause he's really screwed up, man. And you're pack and that just makes it worse. See, Derek thinks that him being in love with someone destroys the pack, but if you mix that with him being in love with someone _in_ the pack? Well that means that it's that person who's going to get hurt. Every time you scrape your fucking knee he thinks it's absolutely his fault. He's a big believer in the Universe hating him that way."

"Well that's stupid," Stiles grumbles. "And that's kind of an ego issue if you think about it. Like, he thinks everything has to do with him. Why can't I just scrape my knee because I scraped my knee?"

With a shrug, Isaac picks up the next book sitting out on the table and flips through it. "Because it's Derek. And even though the Universe hates him, it still revolves around him."

They're still laughing when Erica and Boyd come in. "Hey, cuties."

"What's funny, guys?"

"Derek's an asshat," Stiles manages through his laughter.

Isaac is still trying to catch his breath beside him, his face tinged red. "Like he really is."

Erica looks amused. "Are you two high?"

Boyd gestures to the book between the two of them. "They're reading the journal."

"Ah. That explains it." She clomps over on her high-heeled boots and flops down between the two of them. "Which account is it? The one where he literally fell on his face after that creepy plant monster dragged him down? Or when he tried barking orders at us while on werewolf nip and it made him sound delusional?"

"Werewolf nip?"

"He was stoned for like two days," Boyd tells him. "Scott almost peed himself when he started asking that we rearrange the furniture because no one would dare mess with a well-decorated den."

Stiles smiles, a genuine smile, and it feels good. All of this feels good. It feels right. It feels like home. He strokes down the spine of the journal, licking his lips and keeping his eyes on his lap. When he looks up, his face is solemn. "Do you guys think I can do this? That I'll remember?"

Erica sits on his lap and hugs him and, God, his dick must be loyal as hell because he's not even turned on. "Of course you will, but you don't have to remember it all yet. You just have to not want us all dead."

"I don't want you guys dead. Of course I don't." He wraps his arms around Erica immediately, sickened at the thought. "No. I don't. I can do this."

Isaac nods. "Damn straight you can."

-0-

Derek only feels the tiniest bit guilty about lying. Yes, it's true that shit keeps happening, but that's hardly a reason to go talk to Chris Argent about it. Derek's just glad he's gotten better at lying to his pack.

He takes the Camaro over to Stiles' house. He can hear the Sheriff's dull snores from down the hall and smell Stiles everywhere he goes, and climbing in the bedroom window of his boyfriend is really useless now that he's allowed to use the front door, but he indulges for nostalgia's sake.

Derek can sense that something is off about the room. Something is missing. And when his eyes flash towards the bulletin board, he notices that the picture is missing. It's strange that he couldn't sense it last night, but things had been different last night. Now, with new revelations, it's all he can think about.

That picture is Stiles' favorite.

He finds it almost immediately, lying on his bedside table next to the mug of tea. He wonders why it's there, smells Erica on it.

Of course.

It kind of feels like there's a cloud surrounding him. Like the big, heavy, gray clouds that look like they could fall out of the sky any minute. There are the fluffy white ones that looks awesome and comfy, and then the gray ones. Derek hates the gray ones. But that's what it feels like; it's surrounding him, like he's being smothered.

He takes a deep breath.

Releases it.

The cloud disperses. For now.

He collapses onto Stiles' bed, pressing his face into a pillow. He can smell Stiles—both of them. He can smell the Stiles from two days ago and the Stiles now, because there's a shift in the scent. The Stiles from two days ago doesn't have the pungent fear that the Stiles now has, and it's sad. It makes Derek sad. Because that's not fair. Stiles shouldn't ever have to be afraid.

Derek closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. He remembers the night before the witch attacked, remembers the warmth of Stiles and his relaxed body. He remembers how ominously peaceful everything had been, how he allowed himself to feel like everything was right and everyone was safe.

He can't keep Stiles safe, that much is obvious, but Derek trusts him. Stiles can keep himself safe, and together they can protect the pack.

He remembers the way he and Stiles had held hands as they walked out towards that clearing, following the witch's scent. He remembers how Stiles had been so brave, so fearless against her. He remembers how satisfied she looked with his snark, how she spent only two seconds in a quick, quiet chant before it was done and Stiles was down for the count.

He remembers the way Stiles had kissed him before they left the house.

The kisses now…are good. They're Stiles and they're exciting and Derek is about as happy as he can be in a situation like this, but there's still so much missing. There's that comfort that Stiles is still lacking. Stiles isn't there yet, and Derek knows it hasn't been that long, but it's still been too long for him. He needs his Stiles back. He needs his Stiles to take care of him.

Stiles, who holds him when the nights are quiet and he can't block out the screams in his head, who kisses him smiling and moves around beasts like water. He's only seen Stiles act as Alpha once because when he's around there just shouldn't be a need for that. But he was wounded, Isaac curled around him trying to heal away the pain and Stiles was feral, his body seemingly larger than itself, his hands so held that they might sprout claws. He's beautiful, the illusion of physical power he gives off is breathtaking and Derek knows, he knows that he needs him forever.

They have four more days before the meeting with the Kembries, then in another few weeks it's Stiles' birthday, then Stiles has to leave because school will be starting and if Derek can't handle being without him—but still technically, like, with him—for a single day, then he can't handle _that_. And he really doesn't want to think about that.

Stiles decides to go back to his dad for lunch just about a half hour past noon and he's not sure if he's surprised when he finds Derek's car there. He knows Derek must be aware that he's arrived but he still tries to listen in. His dad apparently just woke up and the kitchen is clinking with the sound of food being made it could only be more ridiculous if Derek were wearing an apron.

"Hey," his dad says, setting the table for three. "Derek heard your car coming. You want lunch?"

Stiles nods. Yawns. "Yeah, sounds good."

"How much did you read?" Derek asks.

"Enough." He almost mentions reading about the demon, but then glances at his father and remembers—right. He doesn't know that Stiles isn't really Stiles. Of course. "Allison called. She said her dad said he never saw you this morning."

Derek clears his throat but doesn't say anything about it. His dad reaches over and claps him on the shoulder. "Are you alright, son? Seen the rest of the pack around and they don't look as beat down as you do."

He puts a smile on for his dad, a variation of the one he would wear whenever he didn't want the Sheriff to know he was thinking about Mom. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just…studying. Pack stuff."

"You'll let me know if it's something I need to worry about."

He nods. "Of course."

Derek clears his throat. "If there was any danger to the town I'd let you know."

The Sheriff nods. "Did you get in touch with UCLA?"

Stiles' head snaps up and Derek visibly winces.

"Oh—uh—no, n-not yet. I…" He swallows, making wide eyes at Derek. What the hell is he supposed to say to that?

"He already sent in his notice that he will be attending," Derek says calmly. "Months ago. And housing will be arranged when he goes down next month to get his books and everything." He smiles easily at the Sheriff and Stiles is glad that he's a better actor. "I'm making sure he's doing everything properly."

"Good." His father smiles. "It's good you're looking out for him. And how do you feel about L.A., Derek?"

Derek and Stiles share a glance before he answers. "It's not Beacon Hills, but I'm sure I'll survive when I visit. Less trees."

Stiles sits back in his seat, watching as the food is set in the middle and Derek and his father take their seats as well. "Visit? What do you mean, visit?"

The Sheriff shifts, scoops from food onto his plate, decidedly not getting involved.

Derek looks down at his plate. "I can't abandon the territory, Stiles."

"That's—but what—Scott is following Allison across the country, Jackson's following Lydia to Boston, and I—" He stops immediately, realizing what's come out of his mouth. He doesn't know that. He doesn't know that that's a thing that he knows—he doesn't know what Scott or Allison or Jackson or Lydia are planning to do and he has no idea why it came out of his mouth.

He swallows tightly.

"Sorry," he says, but he doesn't sound like he means it. "I—I'm not hungry."

Derek watches as Stiles runs up to his room and lets his fork clatter, leaning back in his chair.

"Well, I guess that's what's been eating the both of you," the Sheriff mumbles. "I can't believe you two haven't talked that out yet."

Actually, they have. It's just that Stiles doesn't remember. And that—that thing about Scott going with Allison and Jackson going with Lydia… Those are the exact words Stiles said the first time. The exact argument, as he pleaded for Derek to come with him.

_Erica can handle it_, he said. _Erica and Boyd and Isaac, they'll be wonderful together, and my dad can watch out for them, too. Just come with me. You need to come with me, Derek. I can't leave you._

Derek nods shortly. "Yeah, me neither. We just keep putting it off."

The Sheriff sighs. "Look, Derek. You two are attached at the hip, it's going to be hard. Not just on you either; you think I don't know Isaac sneaks in here like Stiles is his security blanket some nights? But you have to do what you have to do and Stiles has to understand that. You never asked him to stay behind. You didn't, did you?"

He hadn't, but Stiles had offered.

"No," Derek says immediately. "Never. I—it was practically a battle to convince him to go."

"He's just being stubborn," the Sheriff assures him, and then he looks over his shoulders. "Finish your lunch before you go after him. You'll need the energy."

Derek does just that, and when he's upstairs, walking towards Stiles' bedroom, he realizes how much he hates it when things repeat. He can't handle another fight, not in so few hours, and he doesn't want to be the bad guy. But he doesn't want Stiles to be angry, either.

He knocks on the door twice.

"Go away," Stiles calls.

Derek walks in.

He leans against the doorframe and says, "You don't remember, but we already had this fight."

"Oh, yeah?" He punches his pillow. "Who won?"

"Neither of us." He pushes off the wall and moves to sit on the bed. "It sucks all around. But, Stiles, I can't leave for more than a few days at a time. Are you really going to spend the rest of your life tied down here?"

"No," Stiles grumbles. "But I'd been planning on spending the rest of my life with you."

It's a heavy-handed comment, one that really isn't fair to Derek right now, and he sucks in a deep breath before responding. "We've had this discussion before."

"So you've said—that doesn't make it suck any less. You know." He sits up, tucking his pillow into his stomach and pulling his knees up to his chest. "I'm adjusting pretty damn well to this whole thing, thank you very much, and it's really unfair that everything I suddenly want doesn't mean anything."

He sets his hand against Stiles' back and he's glad the boy doesn't squirm away. "It's not about wanting. Do you think I want you to go miles away where anyone can hurt you? Or…"

Stiles looks over his shoulder. "Or what?"

"It's college, Stiles. Shit happens. And I'm not happy about that but you're young." He closes his eyes and breathes. "So, yeah, I'll put up with the fact that seeing you once every few weeks isn't going to stop a drunk girl from trying to make out with you, but keeping you here isn't going to make you happy."

"Being with you will make me happy. I know that."

"Stiles. Trust me." He leans forward, tipping his forehead against the back of Stiles' neck. "Trust me."

"…Derek, what if I never remember?" His voice is quiet, scared. "What if I have to relearn everything? What if I fail with the Kembries and I have to relearn high school and I have to relearn the pack and I have to relearn my friends—what if I have to relearn sex?" He sounds awfully devastated about the last part.

Derek just sighs. "Stiles."

"I know, I know you're going to promise me that everything will be okay and we're going to fix things, but what if we can't? What if we just…can't? The guy you're in love with—he's not me. I've been pretending because I want to make you happy and I want to be happy but he's not me. Not right now. Because I'm missing conversations and I'm missing really important things—I don't remember my senior Prom, Derek. I don't remember our first kiss, I don't remember becoming friends with Allison, I don't remember any of the conversations I've had with Scott over the last two years. I don't… I don't know anything, and it's killing me."

There's a second of hesitation before Derek tugs Stiles backwards, spooning the boy into his body. His voice is calm as he hooks his chin of Stiles' shoulder and says, "You asked me to your senior Prom. Lydia picked out my tux even though I said no and that I didn't want to go. But I went anyway, dressed in jeans." He places a kiss at the base of Stiles' neck. "Our first kiss happened on your seventeenth birthday in this room. You were trying to convince me that you could come along on a mission to help. I kissed you to distract you while I handcuffed you to your desk chair." Stiles makes a noise. Derek kisses a beauty mark behind his ear. "You became friends with Allison at the beginning of your sophomore year in high school. She was the new kid at school and Scott was head-over-fucking-heels for her, and you helped him out because that's the kind of guy you are. And anything and everything you've said to Scott since you can remember is probably irrelevant and laced with stupid so that doesn't matter much anyway."

"I can't do those things again." He sighs and turns in Derek's arm to rest his hands over Derek's chest. "If I don't remember by the time you get your head out of your ass at least I get to have my first time again, right?"

Derek freezes. "Right."

"God," he groans. "You're never going to fuck me, are you?"

Derek laughs, half nervous and half turned on. "You think I'm some sort of saint? Or that I can hold you off for long?"

Stiles smiles just barely. "Maybe. You said yesterday that we weren't really dating until I was 18. I thought, at the time… Did you really wait until I was legal?"

Derek smiles. "Yes, but that was different. And incredibly difficult. I mean…unless. I know that you feel sixteen, so maybe for all intents and purposes…"

"No. Okay? Fuck no, I'm eighteen. I checked my driver's license. If the government drafts, I'd have to flee to Canada. I am absolutely legal and way past the age of consent so you should totally not take that into consideration on the issue of sexing me up, like, at all."

"Thank you for the permission, but that won't be happening. Not yet. Not until we're sure that your memory isn't coming back."

Stiles' eyes flicker down to Derek's lips and back up. "Why?"

Derek clears his throat and looks torn and Stiles decides it's better not to give him space to excuse himself.

"Because if you're worried I'll be bad compared to…myself, you know you, uh, never know. Maybe I'll have some new tricks. Maybe the amnesia came with some mind-blowing moves. Maybe I'll do stuff I never did before, like swallow—I don't know if I swallowed before, Derek, but I'm telling you right now—"

"Jesus Christ, Stiles, shut up!"

Stiles blinks at him.

Derek closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and Stiles watches his lips move like he's counting down from ten. When that's done, Derek opens his eyes again, and they're no less intense than they were ten seconds ago.

"It's just because I don't want this to be happening in the middle of all of this. With the witch and the Kembries and the fighting—I bet you that we'll have another fight before we go to sleep tonight and it'll all wind up right back here again, with you in my lap, trying to convince me to have sex with you." He reaches up, cups Stiles' cheek. "Stiles, I know exactly what you're feeling right now, trust me. And I know you're scared. But that…that doesn't mean you have to do this."

"I want to." He licks his lips. "I want be able to feel like I have control over something."

And Derek knows the textbook answer, that it isn't the right reason, that it should be something that's for itself. But that's bullshit and he knows it, knows it from the memory of fucking Stiles with his hand splayed over the boy's heart just to know it's hammering away and he's alive. He knows it from the warmth of Stiles over him in the morning after a battle, ghosting his lips over where the scars have disappeared but the skin still aches. He knows that sex is how they tell each other, _we're okay, we're still alive_, even if they words don't give them any comfort.

"You really want to?" Derek asks, quiet, breathing the words out against Stiles' lips.

Stiles kind of chokes on the breath he was taking because holy shit, he wasn't actually expecting Derek to crack. "Yes. Yes, I so want it. I want it bad, like they say in porn. Only not like porn, because my gay porn watching has been limited to the past year when I expanded my horizons and…"

Derek lifts his hand, trailing his thumb along Stiles' bottom lip. He knows those lips so well.

He can hear Stiles freaking out, hear his heart racing, smell the pheromones he's releasing. He can tell how bad Stiles really wants it, even feel it, pressing against his lower abdomen, and there's excitement in the air that Derek can recall. This is how it felt the first time, having Stiles in bed with him, being in bed with Stiles. It was excitement and heat and even a little bit of love.

Derek waits, though, because this has to be Stiles'. He needs Stiles to initiate it, needs to be sure that it's what he really, really wants. This, all of it, needs to be more than attraction. He wants Stiles to know that he's in control.

He leans back just to let Stiles know he's not turning him down one more time. He keeps his eyes on intense, but tries for reassuring, and he watches as Stiles pries his own eyes away to look down his body, like he's taking inventory.

"You can touch me," Derek tells him. "It's okay." He puts his hands on Stiles' hips, brings him into his lap. Stiles' hand go to his shoulders immediately, his mouth open and his lips pink and shiny from where he's licked over them.

Derek's heart feels like it's being squeezed as he watches Stiles move shyly, his hands making a curious trail under his shirt and over his chest. He can see the blush rushing up his neck.

Derek leans in a little closer, blinking at Stiles, and he can hear Stiles' breath catch. Then he lifts his arms, waiting. Stiles gets it eventually, clumsily pulling the T-shirt up over Derek's head, and when that's done, he stares. Because Derek is perfect. Hard muscle and perfect skin and that trail of hair that gets makes Stiles' mouth water—

He wants to lick down that line. He wants to lick across Derek's chest and suck hickies into his skin and make him his, but as his brain is thinking all of these things, his body is frozen, stiff, scared.

So Derek takes Stiles' hands in his, and then presses Stiles' palms against the flat, hard panes of his stomach.

Derek can sense the apprehension; it's a different kind of fear, like his limbs won't obey his mind. But that's exactly what this is for, giving Stiles control, so he makes sure that Stiles' hands are flat against his stomach and lets go. He gives him the reigns.

And Stiles takes them. Stiles makes a gasping noise before curling his hands and leaning it too quickly, capturing Derek's mouth with so much ferocity that it's kind of terrifying. He kisses Derek like he's starving for it, running his hands up his stomach, over his pecs, and then into his hair.

Derek scrambles for him, clawing with his human hands along Stiles' sides and yanking him as close as he possibly can, straightening Stiles' legs so that he's fully seated in Derek's lap. They aren't so much kissing as breathing against each other's mouths and trying to maul the other one into submission, but it's still awesome, and Derek still loves the way Stiles makes him feel.

They'll laugh about this later, when Stiles remembers. Stiles will smack him and accuse him of seducing a poor, innocent, 16-year-old boy, and Derek will grin and say, _But you liked it._

Then Stiles moves his hips, stuttering and experimental, and Derek breaks like a glass vase, but he tries to hold in his gasp so that Stiles won't cut himself on the shards. Instead, he holds him close by the base of his back, and he breathes in to hold back his words because he's not sure who he's going to overwhelm.

Stiles moans. And moans. And moans again.

They're pressed completely up against each other, Derek's face in Stiles' throat, Stiles breathing into Derek's hair, and when Stiles thinks they need to be a little more naked like, right now, the worst thing in the world happens.

There's a knock on the door.

A knock on the fucking door.

Derek stops moving immediately and Stiles—after making a pathetic whimpering noise—does too. Derek looks up at him, Stiles closes his pretty lips and breathes through his nose.

Derek holds still, frozen. He seriously doubts with his years of wisdom and experience that the Sheriff would fail to comprehend the meaning of a closed door.

"Um, guys?"

Derek closes his eyes. But, of course, Scott would.

"Christ," Stiles groans, dropping his forehead onto Derek's shoulder. "What the hell?"

"Dude, your dad let me in. Is it, uh, safe?"

Derek growls.

"Never mind. I'll wait downstairs."

Stiles looks almost hilariously angry, his hands clenching around Derek's shoulders. "Can you kill him? Isn't this like a legitimate thing you can kill him for? Because I'm pretty sure he'd shred me if I cockblocked him."

"I won't kill him. But I'll break a couple bones if you want."

Stiles is apparently still adjusting to werewolf humor, because he blinks at Derek like he's scared Derek would actually do it. So Derek leans in and kisses him again because addressing that issue would mean addressing another ton, and he really doesn't want to do that right now.

They're still making out a couple minutes later, smiling and panting, Stiles groping along every inch of skin Derek has above his torso, when Derek's phone rings.

"If that's Scott, I'm gonna kill him myself."

Derek grabs for his phone and holds it in his fist, just this side of strong enough to squish it to death, but he closes his eyes and answers—and whatever he tries to use as a greeting actually sounds more like a vicious growl.

"Oh, shit, am I interrupting something? I so did not intend to interrupt something. I promise this is important."

"Scott. Speak quickly."

"Right, so after Stiles left, Allison and I were just, like, hanging out, right? And then Erica and Boyd were getting it on in the library so Isaac was totally done because he said something about all of us being sickening and so he left and then Erica wanted to go looking for the witch again, right? And so—"

"Scott," Derek says again, this time with his Alpha voice. It makes Stiles' eyes go wide. "Fifteen words or less."

"…the witch went to the Kembries again. Erica and Boyd wanna know what to do."

Derek cocks his head. "Well done, Scott, you managed." He glances up at Stiles. "I'll call Erica. Meet us at the old bookstore in town."

"The one that smells like vanilla?"

Stiles grins. "Old books actually smell like vanilla because as the page decomposes it releases this—"

"That one," Derek tells him. "Go now, and learn what a closed door means."

"Wait, are you totally taking advantage of Stiles right now? Because, like, he's kind of not really himself and I know you two were coupley earlier today but that's not really—"

Derek hangs up. He closes his eyes and counts down in his head and really, he's doing that entirely too often lately. "We need to go."

Stiles sighs heavily. "We're being conspired against."

"By who?"

"Everything."

Derek smiles, kisses him. "Later. Okay? Later."

Stiles frowns and steals another kiss. "Famous last words."

Derek pulls on his shirt and helps Stiles out of bed. "Come on, we'll take my car."

He makes sure to smile at the Sheriff to let him know things are alright as they make their way out the house.

Stiles is annoyed, though, and Derek is maybe looking forward to watching him take on whatever was waiting for them now. Stiles is always a little more sharp around the edges when he's annoyed.

Derek calls Erica from the road, telling her where to meet them, and when they get there, Erica and Boyd are sliding out of a different car, looking upset.

"What happened?" Derek asks.

"Caught a fresh scent of her just outside the woods," Boyd says. "We were going out to check on her house when Erica caught it. Followed it back to the Kembrie place. Her car is still outside of their house."

"She might be coming clean about the spell," Erica says. "We'll lose any advantage we have."

Derek crosses his arms. "No, we won't. We'll have the same advantage we always have. Stiles."

Stiles nods. "I mean, I trust that you guys trust me. I can do it."

"If she tells them that the spell didn't work right, they'll come after Stiles again in a less subtle way," Erica says, sounding annoyed. "Like, by killing him."

That really doesn't scare Stiles as much as it should. "They won't kill me," he says. "Because she won't tell them that the spell isn't effective enough. She wouldn't tell her employers that she fucked up a job."

Boyd looks uncomfortable. "What could she be telling them?"

Derek shrugs. "Look, all that matters right now is making sure we keep an eye on her." He looks over at Scott. "Tell Allison to let her dad know that the treaty meeting is still on as planned and we'd like him to be there. Then meet up with the Sheriff and coordinate protection detail on his house."

Stiles turns to him, eyes wide. "What?"

"Erica is right. They'll try to kill you if they think it'll make us angry enough to forget the treaty. Once we're out in the open, exposed, trying to enact revenge, they'll have reason enough under the hunter laws to kill all of us."

Stiles freezes. In all of this madness he'd only felt fear of letting everyone down, not being good enough. Now his fear is real, disturbingly real. If something happens to his dad, it'll be entirely his fault. He can feel the panic closing in. To his memory, it's only been a few weeks, but his body is out of practice—it doesn't really know how to have a panic attack.

Derek catches him when his knees buckle. He pushes Stiles' knees to his chest after seating him on the sidewalk, shoves his head down between his knees, and remains behind him, pressing his chest against Stiles' back.

"Breathe," he says. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to upset you. Breathe."

He laces his fingers with Derek's and tries to pair his breathing with the inhales and exhales that he can feel against his back. He can feel the tears burning against his eyes and he doesn't worry about keeping them back. "I'm going to get you all killed. All of you and my dad too."

"No," Derek promises, shaking his head against the back of Stiles' neck. "No, no you won't. I promise. We can handle this."

"Derek, if I don't remember, all of this is gonna go to shit and people are gonna die and it's all gonna be my fault."

He feels hands on his knees and on his arms. He opens his eyes and sees Scott right in front of him, Erica and Boyd on either side. He can feel more than hear Derek's words. "If anything happens to us, it won't be your fault, because we're all going to do the best we can and you're going to do the best you can. And we're stronger than them."

Derek looks up at the rest of the. "Scott, go. Text me when you get to Stiles' house." Scott hesitates, then nods, squeezing Stiles' knee before he goes.

"I'll drive him home," Erica says. "Boyd can help you destroy the bitch's car."

Derek arches an eyebrow.

"C'mon, you were thinking about it."

"Take Stiles home and stick to him like glue. Boyd, get anything he left at the house and bring them over. I'll find Isaac, tell him what's up." He puts his hand on the back of Stiles' neck. "Help him up."

They do, and Erica immediately brings Stiles into her arms.

"Whoa, werewolf love."

"Shut up, Batman—get in the Jeep."

"How'd you know I liked Batman?"

Erica rolls her eyes. "Jesus Christ."

-0-

Stiles checks his phone. He called his dad 17 minutes ago and he won't answer again until it's been 30. His leg shakes, the heel of his foot slamming against the floor. Every so often it sends a spike of feeling up his nerves. He doesn't even have time to scream when a hand falls strong on his knee.

"Shh, Stiles, it's me."

"Fuck you," Stiles gasps, scooting over on his bed. Derek crawls completely over it, landing next to him, and there's a good four inches of space between them.

"Sorry."

"Oh, sure, it's fine, I didn't need that vital organ anyway. What's a heart worth anyway?" He puts two fingers up to the pulse on his neck, still moving his foot.

"When it's yours?" Derek whispers, leaning in. His lips are on the knob of Stiles' jaw when he says, "Everything."

Stiles laugh, too loud and nervous, but he leans into the touch of Derek's lips. "God, you're a corny bastard, aren't you."

Derek smiles against his jaw and lays a hand on his side, pulling him close. "I need you to relax, Stiles. Your heart is deafening."

"I can't," he says defensively. "My dad's at work, Scott and Isaac are circling my house like a pair of guard dogs, Boyd's watching the police station, Erica's still stalking the witch, and I think my head is going to explode if I try to deal with anything else." He pulls his head away and grabs at Derek's jacket. "C'mere. You owe me sex."

He lets Stiles pull him close but grabs onto his hands. "Stiles, as much as I want you every minute of every day, I don't want to go at it while you're worried about your dad."

"That's stupid. You're stupid. I'm stupid. Everything's stupid."

Derek grins, kisses his bottom lip. "Lie down, go to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

"Will I be any more laid when I wake up?"

Derek kisses him again, because he can, because it's one of those nights that make him wonder how many more they'll have. "Will it make you feel better if I answer your non-sex related questions? Anything you want."

Stiles squirms back against the bed, letting his head fall onto the pillows. He reaches up, making grabby-hands in Derek's general direction, and when Derek crawls over him, Stiles locks his hands onto Derek's biceps.

"What about sex questions? Why can't I ask sex questions?"

Derek smiles down at him, at the curious pouty set of his lips and he can't, he really can't with this kid. "Fine."

Stiles smiles.

"C'mere." They readjust themselves so that Stiles is lying with his head pillowed on Derek's chest, his leg thrown over one of Derek's, his hand drawing patterns in the soft cotton of Derek's T-shirt. After lying there for a moment, he says, "Tell me about our first time. Details."

"Dirty details?"

"Well maybe try to tone it down since Scott and Isaac are outside and can most likely hear everything we're saying"—Derek snorts—"but give me…details, yes. About everything. About what you said and what you felt and how it was."

"It was… It was the day after your birthday, and you wanted to kill me by then, making you wait until you were 18. But you were exhausted on the night of your birthday so we slept, we just slept even though you said you didn't want to wait and in the morning you woke up and you just said… You said _now_, and I couldn't put it off anymore."

"Why…why did you keep putting it off? Is it the same reason you're putting it off now? Oh, God." He scoots away. "Am I bad? Am I bad at sex?"

Derek leans down to press his lips to Stiles' neck. "You're perfect. Now let me finish. You were all warm, stretching as you woke up, and I couldn't believe that I had been able to hold back for so long." He moves up his Stiles' neck until he's nibbling on his earlobe and whispering under his breath, "And you were trembling, but you were so sure; you're always sure about what you want, and you wanted me inside you. It's my favorite place to be, Stiles. I can't think but I don't need to. Just listening to the sounds you make, it's enough to make me howl."

"How long did we do it?" he asks, and Derek smiles into his skin. Of course the teenager would wonder about his stamina.

Derek smirks and tugs at his ear with his teeth. "Until the sun went away again."

"Are you sure you don't wanna have sex right now? I wanna have sex right now." He sounds breathless, digging his fingers into Derek's stomach. "We could totally have sex right now."

There's a howl outside that even Stiles can hear and he feels a bit sick.

"Ugh, never mind. I _so_ do not want to have sex in front of Scott."

Derek laughs, nipping at the skin of Stiles' collarbone. "You wanna ask something else?"

Stiles hesitates. "I… I was reading one of the journals today, the ones you keep in the library. And… And there was this thing you wrote about that time I was possessed."

Derek goes stiff. And not in the good way. "Stiles."

"You said that seeing my body controlled by something that wasn't me was tearing you apart—that you had nightmares about it and that imagining I could ever be gone from my body—"

Derek rolls, trapping him underneath his body, wrists pinned and legs clamped down with Derek's own. He growls. "Don't."

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

Derek looks like he's been slapped. "You're sorry? You're sorry that we ignored you to the point that you were left vulnerable to a fucking demon? You're sorry that you fought so hard to stay there and defended us the whole time?"

Stiles shakes his head. "No. I'm sorry that you do that. I'm sorry that you blame yourself. I'm sorry that you don't know how to realize it's not your fault."

Derek moves down until his head is resting over Stiles' chest. "Everything I am screams to protect, but you're always getting hurt. Boyd and Erica left once, because I couldn't keep them safe. Isaac went to Scott for protection. They all came back, but if I couldn't keep my own pack safe when they were most vulnerable, how can I make sure my mate never gets hurt? I can't, Stiles, I fucking can't. Obviously or things wouldn't be this way right now."

Stiles runs his fingers through Derek's hair. "I chose this. I got into this. I never left you—so obviously I want this. I want you. And I'm willing to take the consequences that go along with that. I'm willing to do anything for you, Derek."

"I know. That's what makes this all so dangerous."

The groan was outside the window is loud and clear. "Give it a break!"

Stiles leans up and call out, "Shut up, Scott!"

Derek is laughing against his skin again. "The pack seems to think we're a bit too much sometimes."

Stiles smiles. "Let them. They don't know what they're missing." And with that, Stiles settles back over his chest and closes his eyes, nuzzling under Derek's chin.

Derek holds him until they fall asleep.


	4. Inventionem

_**Inventionem**_**: Discovery **

Late the next morning, his father already asleep in bed and Derek in his desk chair, Stiles settles back against the headboard and scrolls through his iPad.

"I can feel you watching me," he tells Derek. "I need to study."

"You're not reading. Your body is all tense and your heart is thumping too loud."

Stiles squirms. "Shut up."

"What are you thinking about?"

"I'm trying to think about studying, because the day after tomorrow, I have to go up against some people who want to kill you and you still haven't decided to bone me yet and I need for you to be alive when that happens—but of course you also said you weren't gonna kiss me anymore and look what happened. Maybe I'll only have to wait a few hours before you give in."

Derek smirks. "You're thinking about this morning, aren't you?"

Stiles goes pink.

"It's okay. You're allowed to look."

"Dude, normally people close the bathroom door if they're naked and getting out of the shower."

"Old habit, sorry."

"I'm not complaining. Just letting you know that if you'd like to hold off on this whole sex thing, you should probably not do things that make me want to jump your bones."

"There's nothing to be nervous about," Derek says, getting up and walking back towards the bed.

"I'm not nervous, I'm impatient," Stiles snaps back. "Do you even remember what your existence was like pre-sex?"

"I was talking about the meeting. Have you stopped to think about why they've gone through all this trouble? The sort of fear that builds these defensive measures? Hunters are sworn to protect people against the dark things that lurk at the edge of humanity"—God, Stiles thinks, his voice is sexy like that—"but here they are, striking deals with witches against 147 pounds of sarcastic human ass. They're terrified."

Stiles grins at that. "Hey, good point. I guess I'm kind of awesome."

"More than kind of." Derek kisses him shortly. "The packs up north call you the Skinwalker. They think there's a wolf spirit trapped in you, that your eyes don't change because it's always the wolf looking out at us. There's a family of hunters in New York, the Harolds. It's their fault all the hunters know about you, Little Red and his wolves; you got a bit ironic with a hoodie and your baseball bat when they thought Isaac was easy prey." He smirks, teeth feral and canine. "Face it, Stiles. You're scary. You're what keeps the bad guys up at night. Crazy boy, running with wolves."

"I do it for the hot werewolf guys, obviously." He cocks his head. "And girls, actually. Them too."

Derek licks his lips and right, they aren't having sex right now, but it's so tempting when he's so tempting and they could always die at any time. Or Stiles could go away to college and never come back, leave the madness of pack and politics aside, meet a nice, regular girl or guy and not look back.

Derek is still afraid of that, every day. He probably will be for the next four years.

"The point is," he continues, "you're more than what you think you are. And what you are is amazing." He taps the iPad in Stiles' hand absentmindedly. "I'm gonna go swap places with Erica. She and Boyd are gonna cover you and your dad while you study and he sleeps, and Scott and Isaac are gonna get some sleep of their own."

"You should let Erica sleep too. And Boyd."

"They will when Scott and Isaac come back tonight. Don't worry. They can handle it."

Stiles nods and kisses Derek one more time before he slips out the window. He leans back on his bed and doesn't wonder how this is his life. Instead, he just—quite wisely if he says so himself—decides to go with it.

When Erica slips into his bedroom, it's twenty minutes later and he's up to his elbows in pack politics. He's absorbing it like a sponge, though, and it's not exactly boring, so he'll take what he can get. He only glances up for a second as Erica hoists herself into his room.

"You could use the front door."

"Not as fun." She leans down, unzipping her boots and kicking them off, then shrugging her jacket off. She's wearing a tank top and tight jeans and she looks, like, really good, but Stiles only spends a second noticing before he's back to his iPad.

Erica crawls onto the bed, lying on her stomach at his side. Her head is even with his chest, and she's kicking her feet lazily in the air.

"Got anything fun to do?"

"Go use the internet. I'm studying."

Erica looks at his iPad. "Hey, wasn't that thing locked when you got it the other day?"

Stiles grunts, scribbling a note down in the margin of a notebook. "Yeah, so?"

"So how did you remember the password?"

His hand stills. He lifts his head. "What?"

Her eyebrows are reaching for her hairline. "How did you remember the password?"

"…um."

She grins. "Awesome, you don't even notice you're remembering things."

Stiles bites his lip. "That was really stupid, though. I should've mentioned that."

"Well, what was it?" She looks over his shoulder at the document he's reading now.

He blinks at her. "Why would I give you my password?"

Erica rolls her eyes. "Because it could be important."

Stiles has to pull up a keypad because he'd tapped the numbers in mostly out of muscle memory. He turns the screen to show her and watches Erica's face.

Her eyes go wide. Then, her lips spread out into a grin.

"Damn, Stiles, you romantic."

"…what?"

"That's Derek's birthday."

Stiles blinks. "Oh."

He immediately blushes and Erica swats her hand at him. "It's sweet. And it makes me happy."

"It makes you happy?" he questions, going back to his document.

"It makes the whole pack happy," she clarifies. "We need Derek to be strong and we need you to be safe and when you're both happy, we're all okay."

Stiles smiles at her. "Like a family."

"Like a family," she affirms. "A dysfunctional family with really kinky parents, but a family nonetheless."

Stiles sticks his tongue out. "Derek's a stupid tease."

"Tell me about it." Stiles nods, sighing, and Erica pokes him. "No, really, tell me about it."

Stiles laughs but what the hell, it's very possible that Erica knows more about his sex life than he does at this point. "He seems to think we should wait until all of this shit is cleared up. Which is stupid. I think we could all do with some sex. Especially us under the illusion that we're virgins."

"He has a very skewed perception of morality. Probably doesn't want to take your virginity away in case you'll regret it, right?"

Stiles shrugs. "Something like that."

"It's a pity," Erica sighs a bit too dramatically. "Scott and Boyd complain but Isaac and I always have a good vicarious time."

"Living through Derek and me?" He scoffs. "Why? Besides the fact that he's some super sexy werewolf, the sex can't be that astonishing, can it?"

Erica tilts her head down and looks up at him through her lashes, smoldering. "Baby, you have no idea."

Stiles sets the iPad down and turns his body towards her. "I'm stressed out and shameless. Tell me."

"Where should I start? The time he fucked you in the woods two days from the full moon and the whole pack could hear it? Or the time you blew him in the Jeep just outside the house because you couldn't wait fifteen minutes to get home?"

Stiles feels heat rising from his chest up to his face that has nothing to do with embarrassment. "Oh," he says. Then, "Do I swallow? I feel like I would swallow."

She shrugs. "We're not allowed that close at risk of life and limb, just close enough to hear." With a smile, she adds, "But just between us, I feel like you would too."

"Do you know if he—does he growl? During, I mean." Stiles smiles just barely. "That'd be really hot."

Erica grins and runs a hand through his hair—wow, that still feels weird his hair all grown out like that. "He growls your name and he calls you his and it's super hot."

"I'm fairly certain I'm supposed to be grossed out by the fact that you know all of this, but at the moment I could not care less." He folds his hands together. "Estimate dick size."

Just as Erica opens her mouth, there's a cry of, "Too much!" from outside Stiles' bedroom window, and that's definitely Boyd. "Seriously, God, please stop."

Stiles smiles at her. "What, Boyd? You don't care to give us your estimate?"

"Not particularly. I thought you were supposed to be studying."

"There are more pressing issues at hand here," Erica tells him. "Stiles is a virgin again."

Suddenly, there he is, just hanging off the window like it's nothing at all. "That's rough, dude."

"Tell me about it." He glances between the two of them. "What about you guys?" He winks dramatically at Erica. "Boogie time for Erica and Boyd?"

Erica opens her mouth but Boyd finishes climbing in the window and manages to say first, "The rest of the pack is much more private than you are."

"And less monogamous," she adds with a grin.

He smirks at her. "Uh huh. Well, I'll remember to ask you about that sometime, Miss Privacy."

"Oh, I have nothing at all to hi—"

Boyd clamps a hand over her mouth. "She just has too much information is all. I'm looking out for the pack."

Stiles raises his arms in defeat. "Wolf orgies until proven otherwise, Boyd."

-0-

Stiles feels like he knows the pack history forwards and backwards by the time he and Lydia get into the Jeep to go the meeting with the Kembries. He's studied all of them, studied the treaty, studied what they need, and he feels like he's about to get a giant A on his semester final. And then maybe his reward will be a nice, long make out session with Derek.

Speaking of Derek.

Right as Stiles opens up the driver's side door, Derek closes it, shoves him against it, and kisses the ever-loving fuck out of him. It's kind of terrific.

Until Lydia clears her throat pointedly. "Derek," she says, but they're still kissing. "Stiles."

Derek nips at Stiles' bottom lip. Stiles moans into his mouth.

"Derek!"

Derek growls softly against Stiles' lips but moves away slowly. "In a minute, Lydia."

Stiles can see her over Derek's shoulder, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. "Sorry, lovebirds, but punctuality is important."

This time he can't hear it but he can feel the vibration of the contained growl in Derek's chest. "Go make sure Argent is ready; you have time."

Lydia stomps off, her hair glinting behind her in the morning sun, then Stiles' vision is filled with Derek again and he smiles. He leans up for another kiss and wraps his arms around the back of Derek's neck.

"The meeting shouldn't take that long. What's with the heartfelt goodbye?"

Derek's eyes flick back and forth between Stiles'. "Just…wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"How much you remember."

Stiles shrugs. "Enough. I'm still missing some chunks. But I'll be fine."

Derek runs a hand over the side of his face. "Yeah, you'll be fine."

"I'd tell you to stop worrying but it's kind of your thing." He smiles. "You carry it well."

Derek steals one more kiss and pushes away from Stiles and the car. "They're going to lie, Stiles."

"I know."

"They're going to try to turn you against the pack," he adds, this time sounding more emphatic.

Stiles sighs. "I know, Derek. I'm not going to listen."

Derek nods and takes another step back, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Lydia and Allison exit the house, followed by Allison's father.

"I'm studied. I'm fine. I'm ready."

"I know. I know you are." Derek looks like he wants to add something else, but instead he nods and walks back around the Jeep, stopping to shake Chris Argent's hand briefly. "Thank you," he says politely. "For this."

Argent nods at him. "Just keeping my family safe."

Derek understands that. They may not be the best of friends but they understand each other and outsiders mean danger to both of them. The four of them climb into the Jeep and Stiles pulls his hoodie up before sticking his head out of the window. "There better be some dinner waiting for me when I get home, honey!" He winks and pulls out down the drive.

Erica grins. "Same old Stiles, huh?"

Derek nods. "Same old Stiles."

The drive is longer than Stiles would like—twenty minutes out of Beacon Hills, then another thirty out of the Kembrie land so they remain in neutral territory—but he switches off with Lydia around the thirty minute mark. His leg can't resist the urge to bounce. He's nervous.

"Anxious?" Allison asks.

He gnaws at his lips and taps his fingers on his knees. "Bunch of people intent on murdering everyone I know and love unless I talk them out of it? Nah. What's there to be anxious about?"

Lydia squeezes his shoulder. "It'll be…"

"It might not be fine."

Stiles blinks. Allison's dad hadn't spoken to him at all until now. "You all know that. It's why we're not going in unarmed."

Stiles' mouth goes dry. There's a gun strapped to the back of his jeans, one he's known how to use since he was thirteen and has never been particularly fond of.

"You'll use it," Argent says, just knowing what he's thinking. "Even if you think you won't. If something goes south, if they try to hurt one of us, you'll use it. You're stronger than you think."

Stiles clears his throat. "Good to know."

He can see Allison smiling beside him. "See? It'll be fine, even if we have to kick some ass."

Stiles sends her a side glance. "Thank God I'm the diplomatic one."

Lydia laughs but doesn't add anything, and the rest of the drive is mostly the buzzing silence of anticipation.

When the road becomes dirt and the scenery becomes trees, Stiles can hear his heart beating louder and louder. They're close. There will be a clearing, two other cars, and the Kembries. Stiles will take a deep breath, remain calm, and force his face into an expression of steely determination, because he cannot let them know that anything is wrong.

Allison squeezes his hand when they park.

Sure enough, there are two big, hulking Hummers that are parked at an angle just across from them. Stiles' Jeep completes the triangle.

He steps out and tries to remember to let things flow naturally, so he doesn't show his surprise when things flowing naturally include the others staying a step behind him.

The Kembries file out in a similar arrangement, a tall older woman flanked by two hunky men on each side. She looks like what he'd expect an old Katniss Everdeen to look like, with her long, grey braid slung over her shoulder and the no bullshit look on her face.

The woman steps forward and he can tell before she even opens her mouth that she isn't going to play nice. She's upset, probably because her plan for getting him out of the way hadn't really worked out. "Well if it isn't the Alpha's concubine."

He raises an eyebrow. "Were you expecting someone else?"

She takes another step forward. "Not at all. Shall we begin?"

Stiles nods. "We understand your family's main concern and we would like to begin by addressing our population issue. We currently stand 10 in number with no plans to recruit new pack members."

"You're counting delusional humans like yourself. You've got six wolves. Now the problem is those two." The woman nods over to Allison and Lydia. "And that shewolf that you've wisely kept tied up at home."

Stiles crosses his arms. He isn't going to act like that wasn't massively annoying. "I fail to see how having women in our pack would be considered an issue, Mrs. Kembrie." He nods at her, his own confidence growing. "Your family recognizes the value of a female. Why can't ours?"

She narrows her eyes. "You'd do well to learn the definition of family, boy."

"I think you know we define it similarly. It's simple. Family is what you do anything for. The people you love without question. The people you protect and kill for." He doesn't stop to think about where his words are coming from or why he isn't sure if they're bullshit or veiled threats.

The woman looks over her shoulder and the men—her sons, Stiles knows—fall in line. "Family is what you're born into and what is born of you."

He lets himself smirk. "That doesn't always work out."

"We are not here to debate your foolishness. The women in your…" Her face twists like she's tasted something sour. "The women in your group are the ones capable of carrying the wolf gene."

Stiles makes the monumental effort to not roll his eyes. "I don't know how you run things in your _group_, but we don't tell our women what to do with their bodies."

She steps to the side and it almost seems as if she'll cross the invisible line past Stiles towards the rest of them. "When their bodies are potential weapons? There should be control."

Lydia, it seems, has had enough. "I understand you have no daughters."

Mrs. Kembrie narrows her eyes at the girl. "You again. You're supposed to be the smart one, aren't you? Shame—such a strong spirit, too."

"And all of your sons have only sons, isn't that true?" Lydia continues, unperturbed.

"Our family is none of your business, child," the older woman sneers, finally shaken from her mask of composure.

"Funny." Lydia smiles. "We don't think ours is any of yours. I don't appreciate you trying to insinuate that you have any say on whether or not I have a child."

Stiles clears his throat. "Lydia, with all due respect."

"The Alpha is the one most of us were worried about," Mrs. Kembrie admits, looking drawl and unenthusiastic. "But since he's taken you as his mate"—she sends Stiles a pointed look—"well, bullet dodged." She purses her lips. "Then again, what do you think he changed that blonde bitch for? Someone needs to carry on his genes."

"No matter what disturbed ideas you have we are not here to discuss the Alpha's genes." Stiles knows his voice nearly resembles a growl by now. "All that's any of your business is that we're not turning anyone. If the ladies want to start having babies like the Lord directly ordered them—to be fruitful—that is their choice and neither you nor I nor the Alpha has any say in the matter. Are we understood?"

She looks angry. And upon further inspection, so do the men flanking her. She turns her head just slightly and whispers something the man closest. He nods, whispers something back. And then she looks even angrier.

"Right. Your treaty protects the lives of your wolves as long as they are within Argent territory."

"If outside the territory, they are only liable to attack from hunters if they are perceived as a threat."

"Leaving your territory constitutes a threat," she tells him. "If you're not in a monitored area—"

"We aren't feral," he interrupts, "if that's what you're thinking. You aren't dealing with a bunch of wild Omegas. We have an Alpha whose interest is to keep his pack and the humans in his territory safe. That at least we can agree on, can't we?"

She hesitates. "Conceded."

Stiles feels his heart skip a beat. That was easier than he thought.

"However, my family and I still doubt the Argent's ability to maintain any…issues."

Stiles takes a breath and a step back, nodding at Chris. The man looks much calmer than anyone else present, especially his daughter. Allison's hand has been itching for her bow since the eldest hunter had taken exception to her reproductive rights.

"And what issues might those be, Ruth?"

"Your daughter's pack hasn't exactly been keeping quiet. The Kanima, the Wendigo. It seems like everything supernatural just decides to play with them. That's a liability in itself. It brings more creatures into the land." She looks over at Stiles. "The demon last year came looking for the wolves and found your little human instead. It found other humans first—used them and their bodies. Those wolves caught its attention. I have a right to be worried."

"Now, Ruth, don't be naïve." He smiles and it's disarming, Stiles'll give him that. "There have always been wolves in the woods and there always will be. Didn't your mother teach you that? Without the Hale pack, Beacon Hills would be run by Omegas. We'd have a damn refugee camp of cannibals and feral beasts because the land is theirs. You can try to snuff them out and others will take their place. Why are you so reluctant to accept a civilized and organized pack? One that has a long-standing agreement with us."

"Because there's nothing civil about this," she says, her jaw clenched. "They are animals."

"Killing them won't make the werewolves go away. And the Hales were pretty influential in their prime. I'm sure they have friends of their own who would want revenge for their death."

"You've gone to seed, Argent," the woman snarls. "You've let your daughter turn her back on her duty and now you protect the beasts she's taken up with."

"My father is not my handler, Ruth," Allison says, and somehow her voice still sounds half sweet. "I know my place and I know the code and most of all I know what it's for. It's to keep innocent lives safe. I think it's something your family all too often forgets."

Ruth is quiet. She looks at Allison, then at Chris, and then at Stiles. "There are some things I just won't stand for, Argent. This treaty"—and Stiles knows immediately that she's going to sign it, if only to ensure her safety—"is detailed. If Hale or his wolves put a toe out of line, we won't hesitate to end them."

Chris doesn't answer. It's Stiles' turn now. Stiles is the one who speaks for the pack.

"Understood," he says, and it is. She's making threats because that's what she does, but she isn't stupid. She knows that the wolves are stronger, that they're meaner, and that they have a lot more fight in them than the hunters. She's playing defense.

It's quiet while Ruth and her family read. They whisper about a few things, look up to glance at the others, and another half hour later, it's signed on the dotted line.

"We're agreed," she tells Stiles, handing him the treaty. "Don't violate our trust."

He smirks. "Don't violate ours."

He's not really sure how he hears it, maybe it's too quiet or maybe he's just on red alert, but he hears the youngest of the men across the way mutter something that sounds like "useless bitch" and even though he knows it isn't the mature course of action, he can't hold back.

"I think you mean witch," he says. "Like the one you sent to take me out."

Everything moves at lightning speed. Suddenly, Allison has her crossbow stretched and aimed, Lydia has knives in her hands and Chris is clicking a rifle, but that only registers after Stiles notices that the Kembrie hunters have drawn their own weapons and _that's_ all after Stiles has already knocked down the young one and pressed the mouth of his own gun to the man's throat.

It's odd and frighteningly natural. Cops and action men point guns at people's chests and heads—Stiles goes for the throat.

"It's already done," Stiles says, voice low. "We're agreed. You don't hurt my family and I won't hurt yours."

The man still looks spiteful despite his position, almost like he doesn't expect Stiles to use the weapon. So Stiles cocks it.

"Stiles," Allison says.

She sounds nervous but Stiles is confident. He's good at a few things, no matter how many memories are missing, like calling bullshit and talking out of his ass.

"I was willing to overlook the fact that you sent some badly trained witch to off me, because you were trying to kill me, weren't you? Slowly and magically so no one would suspect. But if you're going to make snide comments when the safety of my pack and your deranged little family is at stake then I'm going to have to remind you who I am."

Stiles holds back a well-deserved smirk because irony is his bitch.

He takes one step away, letting the man scramble back and shove himself to his feet. He retreats back towards his mother and brothers, watching Stiles. And eventually Stiles lowers his weapon.

"I believe that's ours," Stiles says, gesturing to the treaty still clutched in Ruth's claws.

She looks down at it, then back up at him. "Remember your place, Skinwalker," she hisses, and Stiles preens. He loves that name.

Stiles reaches for the papers almost daintily and the woman lets go of them as if touching them with him might set them on fire.

He smiles. "Oh, I do. I take attempts on my life as an insult, but I'm going to let it go this time." He lifts the papers to his forehead like a salute. "Call it a gesture of peace."

She doesn't say anything before turning on her heel. Stiles waits until their Hummers are loaded and they're ten seconds out before turning around to face the other three. Immediately, Lydia launches herself at him, giggling in his ear like a schoolgirl.

"You did it!" she cheers. "We knew you could!"

He spins her around, just because he can and because it keeps his legs from shaking. "That was freaking insane."

Allison kisses his cheek and Lydia hops off of him, still grinning. Chris pats him on the back before stretching out his hand, palm up. "Give me the keys. You're jumping off your bones—you'll drive us into a tree."

Stiles hands them over without protest, too happy to care, and lets the girls walk him back to the Jeep, each of them grabbing onto one arm.

"Derek will be proud," Allison tells him. "You should've seen him the first time you controlled a meeting like that."

Lydia knocks her hips against his. "It was before you two were even official. We all thought he was gonna jump you from the other side of the room."

"That was bad ass; I'm not crazy, right? I was bad ass?"

"Totally bad ass." Allison nods. "It was hot. Don't tell Scott I said that."

Lydia actually grabs his face and plants a closed-mouth kiss on his lips. "Don't tell Derek I did _that_." She winks and climbs into the Jeep with Allison.

He's still standing dumbfounded—because Lydia Martin just kissed him, holy shit—when Chris sticks his head out the window. "Hey, badass. Get in the car."

-0-

Derek can hear the Jeep's engine a mile away. His leg begins to bounce.

Erica stretches. She's lying on the couch, snoozing lazily, completely calm. Derek, on the other hand, is tied up in knots on the inside, his fists clenched and his body tight. He's scared.

"Relax," Erica sighs. "I can feel your anxiety and it's harshing my mellow."

"Go get the others."

Derek paces. He flounders back and forth between running out to meet them and hiding in his room—and then the rest of the pack is there. Isaac lays his forehead on Derek's back and Danny squeezes his hand.

"Man, relax," Scott says. "You know Stiles has this in the bag."

"He's still one of us," Danny says. "No amnesia could change that."

"You didn't see him," Derek argues. "There are just some things you can't lie about, not with this. If he slipped up even once—"

"But he didn't." Erica steals Danny and Isaac away, dragging them over to the couch to sit with her. "Trust me. I can hear him laughing from here. They're fine."

Derek nods and tries to keep his thoughts in line but he's not going to feel right until Stiles is in front of him. Not until he can feel him pressed up to his chest and smell his intoxicating scent and hear his voice whispering in his ear. By the time the Jeep is in park, he's already standing on the porch, body stiff.

Stiles is the first one out of the car. And Derek doesn't even pretend to not care.

He swoops Stiles into his arms halfway between the Jeep and the porch and presses his face into the boy's neck. He smells like relief and enthusiasm. And Kembrie.

"One of them touched you," Derek mutters.

"I handled it," Stiles says. His arms are around Derek's neck and his stomach is doing really weird, exciting things. Derek is hugging him. In front of the pack. Derek is totally his boyfriend.

Around them the rest of the pack is sharing information and celebrating and once in a while someone pats him on the back but he and his boyfriend, they're having a moment. Derek stops nuzzling the side of his face and kisses him, like he's not sure, like the world is shaky under his feet.

Stiles kisses him back. Stiles puts his hands on either side of Derek's neck and kisses him back eagerly, trying to tell him it's okay. It's awesome, actually, and Stiles is totally willing to take as much awesome as he can get.

"Lunch!" Jackson calls, his car door slamming behind him.

Stiles and Derek don't move, but the rest of the pack flocks towards Jackson and his takeout, already stampeding inside the house. It takes another minute for them to realize they're alone, and when they do, Stiles grins.

"Hi," he says.

"You did it."

Stiles grins and his tongue peeks out from between his teeth. "I was awesome. Ask the girls. Hell, ask Mr. Argent. I was ninja-level awesome."

"You always are." Derek smiles back at him and presses his nose to Stiles' neck. "Why did they get so close to you? Why do you smell so strongly of them—what happened?"

"I…said something about the witch. And the youngest one lunged. I took him down." He says it braggingly, grinning so big that it feels like it takes up his whole face. "It was awesome. I was awesome."

"You didn't kill him, did you?" Derek licks at his pulse. Stiles shudders.

"No. Just wanted to scare him a little."

"I bet he pissed himself," Derek says and then they're laughing, their chests pressed so close together that they can feel every vibration.

Stiles steals a quick kiss. "Don't we need to celebrate?"

Derek hums. "Yes, I think," he decides, sounding happy, and that makes Stiles happy, too. "How would you suggest we go about celebrating?"

It's probably stupid to be blushing after facing down werewolf hunters and holding a gun to a man's aorta, but Derek is suggesting they have sex, so. "We could…excuse ourselves. Or just disappear."

Derek licks his lips. Stiles watches. "Your dad's still home."

"I'm surprisingly okay with losing my virginity in the back of my car."

Derek shakes his head. "I have a house."

Stiles looks over his shoulder. "But the pack…"

"I'll kick them out. Right now, if you want."

"Let them celebrate," Stiles says. Yeah, he wants to have sex, but he also wants…time. He wants privacy, time, and Derek, making him feel like the only person on the planet. He takes Derek's hand and pulls him toward the house. "We need to be together."

Derek doesn't look away from his eyes until Stiles faces forward and pulls him in. Inside, everyone is eating and laughing and touching and being together. Even Chris Argent is still there, Allison hanging off his shoulder while Scott sits scarfing down food in front of her.

Derek sits on the couch across from where Erica, Isaac, and Boyd are cuddling, and pulls Stiles onto his lap. It's okay now, he thinks. He can. He can have Stiles like this. Even if this is it, even if they have to rebuild everything, at least he still has Stiles in some way.

"I like this," Stiles tells him, leaning back into him. "Being…yours."

Derek breathes in, almost like a gasp, and he's filled with the rich scent of happy Stiles only barely tinged by the dangerous marker of a stranger. He'd like nothing more than to order everyone out of the house right now and make certain Stiles smelled like nothing that wasn't pack and contentment and Derek.

But he won't. Because this is for Stiles. This is Stiles' family, even if he doesn't remember their history completely, and Stiles deserves this. For him.

They wait. Stiles sits in his lap, eats, even feeds Derek little bites of pizza and scoops cupcake frosting with his finger into Derek's mouth. Derek's eyes flash red at that—Stiles is pleased to find himself more turned on than afraid. Old habits die hard.

He knows it's almost childish by the crowd around him reminds him of Christmas parties when he was little. Everyone laughing and carrying on and Stiles, happy and exhausted, drifts off into a half asleep.

When he wakes up, he's on a bed. It's not as soft as his own, but it's nice, and the sheets and cool and comfortable. There's a light blanket tossed over him and his shoes are off, and sleep is still heavy on his eyelids but the rest of his body is very, very awake.

"Hey," Derek whispers. "Nice nap?"

He stretches and groans. "I couldn't have a full day of bad ass, huh? I had to pass out like a little kid." Derek is laying beside him and Stiles grins. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"Guilty pleasure. You'll get used to it."

Stiles squirms closer. "I hope so." He sits up, rolling his shoulders. "Are they gone?"

"Left about a half hour ago."

His stomach starts warming up to jump up his throat so he braces himself and sits up on the bed. He leans close to Derek, his eyes on the man's lips.

"We don't have to," Derek whispers.

"Is that what you said to me the first time? The other first time?"

Derek blinks. "Yeah. But you didn't listen. You'd been telling me for months how ready you were."

"I'm ready, Derek."

And Derek wants to, really, he does, but he can't help the words that come out of his mouth. "To do it with a guy you met a week ago?"

Maybe it's latent adrenaline from the meeting but Stiles really isn't in the mood for bullshit so he yanks the blanket off and slides out of the bed. "Not if you're going to be an asshole about it."

Derek sighs. "Stiles."

"I know it doesn't make sense, okay?" he snaps, defensive. He's standing at the foot of the bed, looking anxious. "But I like you. And you like me. And this—us—this is real. I don't need to wait because I know that. Everyone knows that we end up together and that this is a thing so why can't I just have this? Why can't I just be in bed with a hot guy who's really into me?"

Derek scratches at the back of his neck and Stiles wants to laugh, he looks so young. "Because your hot guy has issues?"

Stiles snorts. "Tell me about it."

"I'm still trying to give you an out." He rushes to finish before Stiles can object, "I know we've been over this but, I… I'll never let you go again."

He says it like a warning and every part of it that should scare Stiles just turns him on.

"Okay," Stiles breathes. "Don't let me go."

Derek licks his lips. "Stiles."

"You remember the first time—over and over again until the sun went down again. We can…we have time. For that." Stiles squirms. He can feel his hands shaking. "We can… I can have my first time again."

Derek moves slowly towards him, like he's still giving him time to get away. "Stiles." He says it softly and then closes his eyes, presses his forehead against Stiles' shoulder and breathes. "I wish I could have been there. When you pull rank, when you protect the pack… You're so beautiful. Like a real wolf."

"Don't change the subject," Stiles says softly, though he's flattered. "Sex, Derek. We're talking about sex."

Derek lifts his head, looks Stiles straight in the eyes. "I'm the luckiest Alpha alive, Stiles, to have a human like you."

His breath is caught between a laugh and a sigh. "Focus, Derek. You're not lucky until you get lucky."

Derek cuts off his laugh with a kiss that's entirely too dry and chaste for Stiles' expectations.

"You haven't had sex in what? A week? More than?" Stiles brushes his nose against Derek's. "You want me. I want you."

"I want you to be comfortable."

"And I want you to be naked."

Derek laughs, bright and real, and he pulls Stiles close because it's comfortable. They're comfortable. And really Derek wants them both naked too. He pulls Stiles in for a real kiss, his tongue prodding and parting Stiles' lips. He lets his hands fall flat as they slide under Stiles' shirt and move upwards.

Stiles moans, giggles into his mouth. "Tickles."

"I know."

He swallows tightly. "I've never been naked in front of anyone before. Not…not in my head at least."

"Nervous?"

"Yes." He kisses Derek quickly. "But don't stop."

He breathes in and slows down. He runs his hands in circles over Stiles' back until the involuntary shivers stop, until he starts leaning into the touch.

Then Stiles lifts his arms, and Derek pulls his T-shirt up over his head, letting it fall to the ground. He's all pale, subtle muscles and dark, rough hair beginning at his bellybutton. Derek can see that he's fighting to keep his arms at his sides, so Derek grabs his hands, bringing them to the hem of his own shirt.

When they're both naked from the waist up, Derek grabs him, pulling him to the bed and rolling atop him so quickly that Stiles' breath catches. They're pressed together, skin to skin, and it feels awesome.

Stiles smiles and it probably shouldn't be sexy. It's big and excited, it's innocent and it's hopeful. Derek buries his face in Stiles' chest instead. He takes in scent and follows each trail, licking just above his bellybutton and smirking at the little surprised sound he makes. The foreign scents bother him because they're, well, foreign, but at this distance he can sense it clearly. It's someone else's fear. It sends a spark up his spine, of pride and of need.

When Derek looks up at him, Stiles knows. Naked. Now he's going to be naked.

He rushes to sit up, squirming and kicking, reaching for his zipper, and just holds his breath while he shoves off his jeans. Because Derek is looking. Staring, really, and it's okay, it's just…a lot. A lot of watching. It makes Stiles' heart beat faster.

Derek takes Stiles' hands. He knows they didn't shake like this in the presence of danger a few hours ago. Knows that he stood tall and steady for his pack. But here, now, he's squirming and trembling to stumble out of his clothes. So Derek takes his hands, sets them to his sides with a kiss, and runs his hands over Stiles' thighs down to his ankles, peeling away his jeans as he goes.

Stiles makes a choked noise in the back of his throat. He's hard, achingly hard, and there's a man between his legs, kissing his stomach and undressing him. It's hot. It's amazing. It's perfect.

"Thank you," Derek says, and oh, he must have said that all out loud. "You are too."

"Derek," he gasps.

"Patience."

A thought hits him just then and that shouldn't happen, he shouldn't be having thoughts with so little blood in his brain. "Derek, wait."

Derek stops immediately, looking up. "What? Is something wrong?"

Stiles shakes his head and leans up so he can kiss the worry off his gorgeous face. "It's just…if everything wasn't screwy and we weren't re-enacting my deflowering…how would this go? I mean, after some semi-intense danger and all that. Is it… It'd be different, wouldn't it?"

Derek hesitates. Nods. "Yes, it would."

Stiles licks his lips and runs his hands over Derek's chiseled-by-the-gods chest, his fingers trailing curiously over the waistband of his jeans. "Tell me."

"I…" Derek watches Stiles' hand, enthralled. "Well, we wouldn't be having this conversation. In fact, we'd probably both be naked right now."

"I'm the bottom, right?"

Derek chokes.

"I mean, that's just how I would… That's what I would like. A lot. If you would…" Stiles swallows tightly. His body feels a million degrees too hot. "If you would fuck me."

Derek's breathing stutters and Stiles smiles to himself, unbuttoning the jeans in one go.

"I'm not playing the blushing virgin," he explains. "I'm just honestly equal parts horny and terrified."

Derek nods. "Okay," he says. "That's…that's okay. If that's what you want tonight."

Stiles isn't even sure what they've agreed to but he's done talking. He needs more skin pressing up to skin so he tries to pry Derek's jeans off. Derek ends up doing it himself because Stiles is showing a promising lack of coordination, but then he's there. He's everywhere. Stiles is down to the mattress and Derek hovers as if he's not sure what part of Stiles he should devour first.

"I want to blow you," Stiles says, too fast and too eager. He's licking his lips and breathing really quickly and his hands are on Derek's shoulders. "I really want to blow you."

Derek leans forward, pressing his crotch into the groove of Stiles' hip. They both moan.

"Yeah, let me—let me, let me, let me."

Derek would let Stiles do anything in the world right now. "Yes, yes, okay."

Stiles' arms are shaky but they manage to push Derek down. His face is playful, the way it always it when he's on top. Derek knows Stiles does it to counteract his own natural anxiety about being on his back. He wonders if Stiles knows why he's doing it now. It's instinct, he figures.

"Off," Stiles breathes, nudging Derek's hip. "Lift—off, c'mon."

And Derek lifts his hips, lets Stiles pull his boxers down, and then he's naked. Really naked.

Stiles just stares.

Derek watches him and tries to even out his own breathing. He's not self-conscious, just enthralled by another man—fascinated. Stiles is fascinated.

After a minute Derek runs his hand down Stiles' thigh. "Hey, you don't have to."

"Are you kidding?" Stiles says, smirking just slightly. "I—I'm just mentally preparing myself. That… Wow. Okay. Sure. No big. Except…big."

Derek smiles. "Stiles."

"I'm gonna touch it now."

"Okay."

Stiles clenches and unclenches his fist. "Now. Right now. Gonna do it."

"Okay."

When Stiles wraps his hand around Derek it is, all clichés aside, exactly like magic. Derek's eyes fall closed and his shoulders roll back with his head. It's magic, there's no other word for it, because Derek freaking Hale is turning to beautiful, flexible, sexy mush under his hands.

_I can totally do this_, Stiles thinks. _It's like jerking off except…backwards._

And so he does, strokes up and down with his fist and it's inexperienced and sloppy but Derek jerks his hips up and moans because Stiles' hand is big and firm and—

"Stiles," he moans.

Stiles grins. "I like that. You can definitely moan my name some more."

Derek is really terrible at thinking when sex is happening. He doesn't really try anymore. He and Stiles have learned each other's bodies and there aren't any calculations to be made. But this is as good as the first time for Stiles, so he has to stay present, has to show him that it's more than fucking even though the fucking is damn good.

When Stiles sinks his mouth down around him, Derek clenches his hands into fists at his sides. It had taken Stiles a couple months to be comfortable with Derek's hands in his hair while he did this. He isn't going to make a wrong move—everything has to be perfect.

Stiles pulls off, licking his lips. "Okay, then," he says, his voice breathy. "That."

"You—you don't have to."

Stiles licks up the side of his cock and Derek collapses.

There's something to be said about body memory because Stiles has no recollection of being this close to another guy's dick but he instinctively knows what to do. He closes his eyes because it seems to be the least awkward option and uses his tongue the way he's always imagined would feel nice.

He seems to be doing alright because Derek looks like someone's removed his bones.

Derek's hands are shaking when he lifts them. Stiles can see them trembling right before they drop back onto the mattress, fingers twisting in the sheets. His scalp tingles. He wants Derek to tug on his hair, to guide his head. He wants Derek's hands on him.

He pulls off of Derek to say as much as the older man groans.

"Stiles," he says.

"C'mon. Touch me."


	5. Amare in Corpore Vestro

_**Amare in Corpore Vestro**_**: To Love Your Body**

Derek isn't sure but Stiles looks so earnest that he can't say no. But he also can't hold back now that Stiles has said it, now that there's no doubt that he wants to be touched. He licks his lips and runs his hands over Stiles' shoulders and down his back. He covers as much skin as he can before threading his fingers through his hair—and he loves it this way, loving that he grew it out in part for nights like this—and he tugs gently, guiding Stiles back to him.

Stiles is even more enthusiastic then, licking and sucking and still using his hand. He has Derek as deep inside of his mouth and he can take it and it just—it's ridiculous because he can't breathe but it feels intriguingly awesome and he's still so fucking hard—and he moans. He moans so loudly and so deeply and he can feel it vibrate and apparently so can Derek, because he twists his fingers tight in Stiles' hair and cries out his name.

Stiles is confused again because Derek seemed to like what he was doing but now he's tugging at his hair hard enough to pull him off. He's about to ask if he did something wrong when Derek mauls him, outright mauls him, pressing him into the mattress and kissing him like he wants to climb into his mouth. He scrambles to make room for Derek between his legs and he's not sure what noise comes out of his mouth but Derek has his bottom lip between his teeth and it's kind of fantastic.

He's still wearing boxers and is hard as a rock, so sue him if he arches up into Derek and rubs against him while they kiss. It feels good, the friction, even through his clothes, and Derek is groaning into his mouth before grabbing his hips and pinning them.

"Stay," Derek grumbles from low in his throat. "Just let me."

And then he proceeds to slink down Stiles' body and pull down the fabric around his hips. With his teeth.

He really can't be bothered with how weird he has to look, leaning on his elbows and all but contorted to watch Derek's mouth work. It's straight out of porn and how the hell is he using his teeth like that? But then he's got his fingers under the waistband and his stomach is in knots.

When Derek touches his cock, his elbows give out. That's Derek hand, big and hot and perfect, under his underwear, jerking him off just the way he likes it—firm and lazy but not too slow, just the right speed so it's enough. It's perfect, Stiles thinks, and then that's all he can think because he's totally about to come—absolutely about to come after three fucking seconds of a handjob and how pathetic is that—

And then Derek stops, lifts his hand away.

"No," Stiles whines, arching his hips. "No, c'mon, come back."

Derek smiles, small and real and it's only then Stiles realizes how intense he's been looking this entire time. Stiles wants to whine more but Derek is running his hands over his body like he's reading a sacred book in Braille and Stiles can't interrupt, no matter how hard and horny and somewhat confused he is.

So he lets Derek undress him fully, lets Derek spread him out and kiss him. Kiss his forehead, his nose, his mouth, his chin, all the way down to his toes and everything in between. It's terrifying in some respects because this is…really intimate, and Stiles can feel himself falling for Derek so hard. What if he gets his heart broken? What if things don't go the way they're supposed to? Then, in another way, it's amazing. Because Derek is loving him with his mouth and his hands, taking his time and exploring familiar territory. It makes Stiles feel absolutely precious.

"Derek." He isn't even sure he made any noise but he tried to breathe and the word came out and Derek is looking up at him, his eyes wide like he's woken up from an unplanned nap. He pushes himself up on his arms until he's pressing his forehead to Stiles' chest and pressing a kiss over his heart. His heart that's making an honest effort to just pound straight out of his body.

"Shh." He runs a hand over Stiles' cheek and leans up to look at him. "Are you scared?"

Stiles shakes his head. "No—not scared. Not of this, not of you. I… I want…"

Derek crawls up his body, kisses his forehead. "Breathe."

"I remember your hands," he whispers. "I remember the way you touch me. I—I don't even know if it's really a memory but it's familiar. The way your hands feel on my body, it's comfortable. It's right."

Derek swallows tightly. "Tell me what to do, Stiles."

"You should know better than I do."

"No. This…this is yours. I want to do everything you want."

Stiles licks his lips. "Derek. It's ours."

And Derek understands. He doesn't want a new experience because he isn't a new man. He wants what his body remembers. Derek knows what his body wants, so he runs his hand down over Stiles' side and pulls his leg up until Stiles gets the idea and hitches it over Derek's hip. He shifts and Stiles breaks.

Stiles claws at Derek's back with his very human hands and when he pictures sex all by himself under the covers it was always a blunt in-out thing, it was nothing like this, all unexpected brushing together and lips and perfect ass and way too many parts of him feeling good at the same time to keep track.

It's overwhelming. They're just moving with each other, rubbing, and it's nakedness and sweat and a little bit of pre-come that makes the whole thing fucking awesome. Stiles never wants to stop. He can totally do this for forever, just do this, come, and then go for it all over again. His body is firing a thousand nerves off at once, begging for _more, please, more, faster, harder, more_—and Derek shudders like he can feel it.

"I…" He's trying to say things and that's a stupid idea because there is no oxygen in his brain but he knows to throw his head back. "Derek, please…"

Derek mouths at Stiles' throat, his teeth grazing the skin and he's mouthing words that Stiles can't hear.

"Are you gonna let me come?" Stiles asks, panting. "I mean, before you put it in me? Because I could totally get it up again. We could do it twice. We could do it more than twice. We could just, like, do it all afternoon and all night and even tomorrow, all day." He moans. "Derek."

Derek smirks and then he disappears again, down his body licking and nipping as he goes until, "Fuck." Stiles was an idiot if he thought that what he was doing was anything special because obviously Derek's mouth is the sort of mystical place people write epic poetry about, hot and wet like porn dictates but also full and slow, careful and full of intent.

This…has never happened before. Well, okay, maybe it might have at some time, but not in 16-year-old Stiles' head. Like…abstractly, maybe. But it wasn't something he went looking for, unlike blowjobs and actual penetrative sex. This whole, uh, licking thing. It's new. And it fucking rocks.

It should be weird. It should be horrible and gross and a complete turn off but all Stiles can do is moan and gag and shove himself down on Derek's tongue because fuck, there isn't even a word good enough for how amazing it feels. His body feels slow and boneless but desperate at the same time and he can't stop pushing for it, begging wordlessly for _more more more._

"Is that a yes?" he gasps finally. "Because if you keep doing that, I'm gonna come my brains out."

He almost does then because Derek's eyes are dark and he's looking at him from between Stiles' legs and fuck if that isn't almost enough to throw him over the edge but it just makes his breath hitch. Derek kisses the inside of his thighs and then looks straight at him. He licks his lips and whispers, "Yes," before wrapping his hand around Stiles' painfully hard cock.

"Fuck," Stiles says, head falling back. Everything is working too fast and too hard and Derek is licking and pushing his tongue _inside_ and that makes Stiles shake so fucking hard and that hand—that fucking hand—just keeps stroking happily, like it's taking its goddamn time—

And then he comes. Jerking and arching and crying out like he's in pain, practically writhing off the bed. His vision is all black with some bright white spots and he's never had an orgasm like this, never felt anything so intense. It's always better with someone else, he figures. Especially someone who knows your body.

Derek knows his body, yes, and now Stiles wants to know his body too. But it's impossible to move right now because he just came his brains out and Derek is licking him again like he's covered in sugar when he's actually covered in… When it clicks in his mind, his dick starts its valiant effort in getting hard again, but it needs like one more minute and Stiles is still trying to compute the fact that the most beautiful man in the world is licking come off his body.

"Oh."

Derek lifts his head. "Okay?"

He nods. "Yeah. Yeah, it's… Yeah."

"How do you feel?"

Stiles hesitates. The synapses in his brain are still firing so he's all loose and warm and comfortable—and so he doesn't really know what to say. Except, "Awesome."

Derek smiles. "Good."

"So, uh, do you…" Stiles squirms under Derek's body, licking his lips. "Do you need…?"

Derek kisses him then, shoving his tongue into Stiles' mouth, and Stiles squirms and takes it because like everything else, it should be gross, but it's just perfect. They kiss for a long time, still touching, absorbing, and when Derek pulls back, he shakes his head. "No—I want to come inside you."

Stiles can hear his own heartbeat speed up. This is going to happen. He's gonna lose his virginity—in his head at least—and it's going to be to the hottest creature on the face of the planet. Derek's gonna take his virginity.

Of course he didn't notice before, what with the mind-blowing orgasm and all, but they're sort of upside down, Stiles' head all but hanging off the foot of the bed. When Derek goes up on his knees and stretches up towards the bedside table to rummage for God knows what, Stiles starts to panic a bit. Because fuck, look at him, muscles stretched out and just everything and he just looks as strong as he feels and he's too much. He's too perfect.

Stiles scoots further onto the bed, closer to Derek, and is suddenly hyperaware of every part of his body. Derek's gonna be inside him soon, something that he's kind of very interested in, and so he's a little tingly, a little nervous, and he think he can feel every skin cell of Derek's hand making contact with the skin cells of his own when Derek reaches out and touches him.

His eyes are calm. "Stiles. Your heartbeat."

Stiles' eyes are suddenly focused on the bottle in Derek's other hand (the hand that isn't wrapped around his upper arm trying to calm him down) and that's lube. Which is something people use. For sex. Because sex is going to happen now.

Derek looks like he's holding back a laugh and he still looks worried. "Not if you don't want it to, Stiles."

Oh, shit. He'd said that out loud. "I want it really bad."

Derek keeps his smile and nods. "Okay. C'mere." He lifts Stiles up just slightly and takes a pillow from the other side of the bed to slide under Stiles' head. There's a lot of touching and situating and then, even though they don't need one yet and Derek hasn't even put his fingers _there_, Stiles asks in a moment of panic, "Condom?"

"We don't."

"I find it very hard to believe that I would not be having safe sex. I mean, I know I'm kind of kooky and, like, delirious, but—"

Derek silences him with a kiss. "I don't carry diseases. Werewolf, remember?"

"…right. Werewolf."

Derek wavers. "I can… Jackson has some in his room."

Stiles gnaws at his bottom lip because so many years of having safe sex drilled into your head… But, "Hey, I trust you with my life, right?"

"Usually."

"Then it's cool. Like… I trust you. With this."

And then Derek snaps open the cap of the lube with a click and shit, this is totally happening.

He squeezes some onto his fingers and rubs them against each other it's just mesmerizing. Derek plants his clean hand on Stiles' chest. "Breathe, okay? Relax. I promise I won't hurt you."

Stiles nods quickly. He spreads his legs a little wider because that seems like the thing to do, and waits. "You're really cool about this," he mutters, body tight as Derek spreads his cheeks. "Fuck—how are you so cool about this?"

"Practice."

And then there's a finger inside of him. It's a little cold and a little awkward and it's not actually all the way in but it still feels…something. Not good, not yet, but it's a little bit of relief in a way, and Stiles can understand why it's so easy to get into something like this. It's intimate.

Derek's other hand is still on him, moving down to his stomach, and it's almost petting as he works the finger deeper, slow in the extreme. Somehow it's hard to decide which hand is more intimate.

Then Derek flexes, taking the slow movements in another direction. His finger. Derek's finger. It's moving inside of him, Stiles realizes, and his breath catches in his throat. Derek is inside of him. Just a little bit, but it's still something, and then—

"Two?" Derek asks.

And Stiles nods. "Yeah, yeah, two."

And two is different story because two burns a little, burns like it's real and not magical but still perfect, like happy Sundays when it rains on your food. He hisses but moves with Derek's hand, trying to show him that he's totally completely committed to sexytimes, with or without burning.

"Good?"

Stiles can only whimper in response.

Derek grins. "Good," he affirms.

It actually is getting good. It feels… Well, it feels like he'll be full soon. It feels like once all of this is over, once he's open and wet and ready, just dying for it, Derek can push in and fill him and love him and, honestly, that thought is all it takes before he's fully hard and riding Derek's hand like he's going to die if he can't have it all immediately.

He's clinging and he feels so much and he needs so much that he almost feels like sobbing but he just begs instead, "Derek… Derek, please."

"Wait. Just a little longer." He's spreading his fingers slowly, carefully, stretching Stiles out until there's enough space to slide a third finger in and he doesn't even ask this time, just pulls out completely to slick up his fingers a little bit more.

Stiles whines. "Don't you dare—don't you fucking dare."

Derek kisses his temple. "Relax. Hey, relax." He nudges his fingertips up against Stiles' entrance, sliding all three inside of him.

Stiles gasps this time because wow, that's pushing it, and does that mean that the actual thing is going to hurt? And wait, that's stupid, of course it's going to hurt, oh, fuck, it's going to hurt and he's whimpering. But his whimpers are nothing against Derek's delicious shushing noises.

"Let it feel good, Stiles. Just relax. Take it."

Derek is kissing him and leaning against him, his warmth and weight so solid and comforting, and so Stiles melts just a little bit more and lets Derek keep pushing inside of him, stretching him, spreading him, prepping him. Derek kisses his lips softly, slowly, entangling their tongues for just a second. It's a distraction, and a nice one. It helps.

It also muffles his cry of indignation when Derek pulls his fingers out and repositions his body like a rag doll. He chooses to cling to him, because he knows that if he doesn't Derek will look at him all worried and earnest and ask him if he's sure and if he's ready and those are the kind of questions that make him have trouble breathing. So he pulls Derek close and kisses him hard and keeps his eyes closed like somehow that'll make it hurt less.

He thinks he can hear slick skin on skin, like Derek is jerking off, and fuck, he should totally open his eyes to get a look at that but he just can't because no. So instead, he arches his back and licks his perpetually dry lips, because this needs to happen. It needs to happen now.

It would be sinfully horrific if there were an interruption. A knock at the door, a phone call. But they're alone. Stiles knows they're alone. And it's them, in Derek's bed, right where they belong. This is their celebration, this is their reward. Stiles is going to take it.

So it's amazing and terrifying when he feels Derek pushing against him and fuck, he doesn't know if he should open his eyes or shut them tighter because this is going to be bad because there's just no way that's going to be inside him and be pleasant—it's not going to happen.

But then it _is_ happening. He feels like he's being split in two, like it burns and stretches and hurts but then the hurt just settles into a dull ache because there's something…inside of him. Up. There. In him. It's not comfortable, not really, but it's not super I-can't-take-it painful.

Derek is kind of shaking just a little bit, and Stiles is still hard, surprisingly enough, so he squirms, just a bit. He can feel everything inside of him. Every sense in heightened. He can feel Derek, hot and firm, and he can feel his arms trembling, his abs quivering. Stiles thinks he might actually be crying.

He doesn't have any air in him to work with but he tries to call Derek's name it's successful. He's not crying but he looks like he's in pain and well, that makes two of them. But it doesn't make sense so Stiles asks if he's okay. He almost wants to laugh because shouldn't that be the other way around? But he's much more worried about what's wrong with Derek.

""M fine," Derek says.

"No, you're not. You look…" Stiles strokes his thumb down Derek's cheek. "You look sad."

Derek lowers his head, presses his forehead to Stiles' chest. "I just love you," he whispers, and it sounds like an admission.

Stiles closes his eyes. He can't say it back even though he kind of feels the remnants of where the love is inside of him—if that makes any sense at all—because yeah, he thinks he loves Derek. But he can't say it, not when he doesn't really know it the way Derek does, so he trails his hands down Derek's neck and says, "I know you do."

He breathes in slow and it moves his whole body. It aches, but it's a sort of good ache after so long holding still. "It's okay," he tells Derek. His words are strained and hard to come by but they're there. "It's okay, you can move."

Derek does. He shifts back, inch by inch, until he's nearly out of Stiles' body completely, and then back in, just as slow. Stiles is moaning just a little, trembling just slightly, and Derek looks like he's on Cloud Nine.

"Beautiful," Stiles says.

"Perfect," Derek counters.

They move, slow but firm, and it builds from a good ache to just plain good to Stiles-can-never-possibly-get-enough-of-this. He's clinging to Derek's body and he tries to focus his eyes on some far away point because he thinks if he looks into Derek's eyes and see the emotion there, he might die.

Derek captures his mouth, kisses him, and Stiles is grateful for the excuse to close his eyes. His lids are heavy with pleasure and every thrust inside of him is another deep echo of desire that spurs him on as he moans for Derek.

_More._

_Deeper._

_Harder._

_I can take it._

_More._

Derek slows his pace because he wants to draw this out, he wants to hear the sounds Stiles makes for as long as he can. He can see it when their eyes meet, the way Stiles is trying desperately to reach for something that's just out of hand, how hard he's trying to remember.

"It's okay," he whispers. "It's okay."

"I know it's okay, you jackass." Stiles thumps him weakly on the shoulder and throws his head back. "Don't stop."

Stiles decides he's not going to ruin the only sex available to his memory with wishing that things were different. He closes his eyes and just lets himself feel. He feels full and slick but he also feels chills on his over-warm skin when Derek presses his lips against him randomly, too soft for the current situation. Just light brushes that leave him wanting more.

Stiles rolls with it, undulating his hips with Derek's. It feels too good, too much, and he knows that he can't expect to last much longer, no matter how short of a time it's been. First time means no stamina and, thankfully, no refractory period. They'll be up all night if Stiles has his way because there's no way in hell they're stopping yet.

Stiles has his fingers in Derek's hair and he probably doesn't remember how that drives Derek crazy but it does. He forgets about his slow measured pace and his thrusts become erratic, drawing short little huffs of breath and sounds from Stiles.

Derek hitches Stiles' legs up around his waist, tight, tighter, higher, until Stiles' knees are almost at his shoulders and Stiles can feel the stretch in his muscles, feel how Derek is building up to something. It's intense, their breath together, their bodies moving. Stiles thinks he totally understands why people have sex so much. It's absolutely his favorite thing now.

He thought he'd have more warning because usually when he's by himself he can see it coming—and he's not going to laugh at his own pun when he's in this position—but he can see his orgasm coming a mile away. But not now, not when it probably matters most because Derek just shifts the tiniest bit at just the right time and Stiles feels he might snap in half, his body goes rigid so fast.

Everything is bunch of pretty bright lights and warm, glowy feelings as he comes, the earth moving around him. He can distantly feel Derek, still inside him, still holding him, and then he hears Derek's powerful groan, rumbling all through him, even to the parts still inside of Stiles.

He moans, just a little, and realizes his throat is sore. Is he a screamer? Did he scream?

Cool.

Derek collapses on top of him when it's done, and Stiles is just too happy to care about the 170 plus pounds on top of him because Derek is warm and he's sleepy so fuck it all because he just got laid!

He even tries to do a cheering gesture but his arms won't budge that far so he settles for wrapping them over Derek's back and contemplating the fact that he could seriously stay here forever. He wonders if the sex is always like that and as usual, without his explicit mental consent, he wonders it out loud.

Derek smiles against his neck. "Depends. Usually there's some kinky stuff too."

"How kinky?"

"You tied me up once with some handcuffs you found in your dad's office. It was awesome."

Stiles giggles joyously. "Wow. I could get used to this."

Derek kisses his chin. "I hope you do."

Stiles pulls his chin up and wow, Derek is very malleable post-coitus because he just goes with it. The kiss is slow and languid and at some point during it, Stiles makes a noise of discomfort as Derek pulls out then there's the frankly weird feeling of—oh, god, he's leaking.

He squirms. "Okay then."

"Sorry, I know it's, uh, sudden. Are you alright?"

Stiles licks his lips, nods. "Yeah. Just…we're gonna ruin your sheets."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Derek kisses him again then, all heat and desperation. Stiles smiles into it.

Derek pulls away and says, "You're going to want a shower," just as Stiles winces and says, "I kind of want a shower," and they laugh, still a little short of breath.

"I'll get the water started," Derek says. And then he slides out of bed, still naked. Stiles has never enjoyed watching someone walk away so very, very much.

Stiles walks to the bathroom and debates whether or not he should be covering up with a towel, regardless of how deep in his ass Derek was about five minutes ago, it still makes him nervous to walk around without a stitch of clothing. But Derek is there already in the shower, his eyes closed against the spray and the water falling over his body and Stiles is starting to think he's walking from porn scenario A to porn scenario B.

He and his dick—which is already standing at attention against his stomach—are totally okay with that.

Derek shoves the hair back over his forehead, blinks the water out of his eyes, and gives Stiles this look. Like…a sex look. A sexy look. Because Stiles is naked. And Derek is naked.

Fuck, life is good.

He tries to walk into the shower in as sexy a manner as possible but he ends up stumbling and almost getting himself killed. But Derek's doesn't stumble or do anything remotely unattractive, he just holds Stiles steady with his unbelievable arms.

"Please tell me I was at least a little cool after our first…" Stiles screws up his face. "_First_ first time."

Derek arches an eyebrow. "You fell out of bed and yanked me with you. It was kind of romantic actually," he continues as Stiles hides his face in Derek's neck. "It was right under the window and the sun was streaming in. We made love there."

Stiles lifts his head. "_Made love_? Really?"

Derek lifts an eyebrow like he's daring Stiles to make fun. "It was your first time." He turns back to the water and reaches for a bottle of body wash and Stiles wonders if he's offended so he wraps his arms around him and kisses the back of his neck.

"I'm sure it was perfect. If it was anything like this…" He nuzzles at Derek's skin and a thought occurs to him. He probably shouldn't ask, so of course that means he does. "What about your first time? How old were you?"

Derek goes all still, the wrong kind, and it sort of reminds Stiles of animals about to attack. He feels like letting go, like getting out of the shower and putting space between Derek and his own vulnerably naked body—which makes no sense, he wants zero distance between Derek and his naked body. So he doesn't, but his hold around Derek's body loosens up. "Sorry, I—"

"Too young," Derek interrupts, and his voice is all gruff so that Stiles can't tell if he's angry or just upset so he just focuses on what he's saying and not how he's saying it. He focuses on what he's saying and a hundred different things that are all too horrible to process run through his head.

Stiles turns him around gently, guiding him by the shoulders, and kisses him. Kisses him soft and slow and sweet, and Derek just stands there, lets him, kisses him back weakly.

"So when I was 17 and you kissed me…"

"I hated myself for months," Derek says.

"Don't. Don't hate yourself. I can't bear you hating yourself, not when I…" Stiles blinks. "Not when I'm falling in love with you."

Derek's eyes look over his face, darting from his lips to his eyes and all over the place and he sighs, not big and loud but still recognizably a sigh. "I'm trying not to hate myself for letting you do this all over again. I'm always telling myself how I'd keep you away from all of this if you'd let me. You would have let me, if I had tried."

"We would've found our way back to each other, though," Stiles tells him. "I know we would've. We would've wound up together one way or another, no matter how you tried to keep me away."

"If I was just less selfish—"

Stiles kisses him. Wraps his arms up around Derek's shoulders and kisses him, deep and proper, so that they're pressed all up against each other—and Stiles can feel where Derek is half hard because apparently even thinking about however the hell he lost his virginity at an age that was "too young" is small potatoes compared to the naked glory of Stiles Stilinski. He likes that.

Derek puts his hands on Stiles' hips. "Stiles."

"I like you when you're selfish," Stiles hisses against his lips. "You need to take care of yourself. You need to take the things you want and enjoy them. Have a beer, watch a baseball game, and stop being a fucking martyr."

Derek leans close and speaks low into his ear. "If I'm being a martyr while I fuck you, does that make me a fucking martyr?"

Stiles swallows tightly. "Oh. Jokes. Wow, you're…hilarious." But his sarcasm loses a lot of his punch because his voice is all breathy and Derek is touching him and, "Yeah," Stiles whispers, "yes, to whatever, or no, because I don't really remember what the right answer is but just don't—don't stop that."

Derek grins and reaches over him to yank the curtain closed. "C'mon, Little Red. Let the big, bad wolf eat you up."

-0-

It's nearly midnight when Isaac walks into the house. He has things in the library to grab before he goes upstairs to his own room, but he stops, only two steps inside the main room. The air downstairs is cool, relaxed, but there's a shift just a floor above.

It's thick, heady, molten with sex, and he can hear Derek's snores just over Stiles' heartbeat so he knows, immediately.

He can't fight the smile that worms its way onto his face. Under any other circumstances, he would've rolled his eyes and carried on, but it's just… Them. Their fearless leaders. Together.

It makes him happy.

He walks into the library and finds the books he needs, but doesn't go up to his room. He thinks Stiles and Derek need a little more time to themselves. Besides, Mrs. McCall loves having him over.

And what of it if he sends out a mass text on his way to the car? They deserve to know.

_Stiles has lost his virginity. Again. I'd suggest not going home until the sex fumes settle._

-0-

There are things that don't seem to make sense out of context. That's what it feels like, really, because so far he's enjoying what his life apparently has come to be but it feels...like clips of a movie he hasn't seen. For example it doesn't make sense that he's the big spoon in this situation but apparently he is. Eventually Derek rolls away from him, lays on his stomach and looks so peaceful. But Stiles isn't peaceful, he's not even exhausted by the three rounds of sex, he's buzzing with the need to know and he's afraid that it's never going to go away. That he'll never remember.

He slips out of the bed and pulls his jeans and his shoes on, pawing around the floor for his shirt but it's too dark so he grabs his hoodie and pulls that on instead.

It's late and he knows that if he slinks around the house too long Derek will hear him so he grabs a flashlight from the kitchen and he heads out back.

The woods don't scare him. He figures that maybe they should but it's three o'clock in the morning and he's treading over dirt and through leaves because he's just…trapped. It feels like he's trapped inside of his head, like there are too many thoughts too fast and he can't even catch all of them. All he knows right now is that he needs to take a walk and clear his head.

Derek is his first thought.

He's real. This is happening. And Stiles smiles at the thought, wanting to laugh.

A week ago he was some boring nerd in Beacon Hills who couldn't get Lydia Martin to even glance at him.

Now he's at least an inch taller, has more muscle that thought his body was able of producing, and he's having really hot sex with an emotionally stunted werewolf who looks at him like he's hung the moon.

Does life really get any better?

But he can't get past the feeling that he's living a dream. He knows why; Derek's told him as much. He doesn't remember the hardships or the horrors or the fights. He doesn't remember the things that make Erica look uncomfortable and Scott frown. He doesn't remember the blemishes that make life real, he's just dropped in the middle of a good day.

He wants his memory so he can have the bad days too, and maybe he's crazy for that, but he's a werewolf's boyfriend and he scared people with big guns today and maybe crazy is his middle name. Still better than his first.

He's kicking at rocks when he sees it.

There's a light in the distance that has absolutely nothing to do with the flashlight in his hand.

He can hear Derek's voice in his head, Curiosity killed the cat, Stiles.

The cat was stupid, Stiles argues. The cat didn't take proper precautions. I'm a badass. I'm a totally precautionary badass.

It's the middle of the night, Stiles. Go home. Go to bed. Don't go towards it.

And that's around the time when Stiles stops listening to the voice in his head. He does like that it sounds like Derek, though. Makes his conscious a lot sexier.

There's a woman, a lighter blond than Erica and older too. She's sitting way too innocently, looking over something on her lap and at first he thinks it's an iPad but it's thick and it looks almost like a real book.

She hasn't noticed him yet and Stiles is a little confused—why is there a girl who looks around Derek's age just sitting on the floor of the woods in the middle of the night?

He's about to step forward and ask her when she looks up, sudden and harsh, and he scrambles backwards, nearly falling.

"Stiles," she says, and that sends a shiver down his spine. She shouldn't know who he is. How does she know who he is?

She smiles all cruel and hostile. "You know when you fail a test, Stiles? How it makes you feel a little sick inside, knowing that you failed? Wondering how screwed you are?"

Stiles swallows tightly. And then he realizes… She's a test.

"You're the witch," he says, and it's like just saying the words made them true, because he feels that tingle of familiarity. "You're the witch."

She scrunches up her nose, still smiling. "Oh, how bright you are. All young and daring—and going off to college. How…charming."

And just like that he's not stuttering or wondering or anything unsure. "Must have charmed the pants right off you, considering what you did to me."

"Little old me? Oh, honey, that was just a job." She cocks her head, pouts. Stiles can tell it's an act, it's a tease, and it makes him angry. "Don't take it personally."

"So give me my memory back."

Her face twists in an instant, all dark and pissed as hell. Stiles' self-preservation tells him to back the fuck up and get out, but he can't let her know that. He's not scared. He's staying.

"I underestimated you, Stiles," she says. "You're clever. Tricking those hunters into thinking you still knew everything—but that's not that hard, I guess. They're as dumb as a bag of bricks. Not like you or me. We're special, aren't we, Stiles?"

He blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Humans. With power." She gestures grandly, leaving the book in the lap as she lifts her arms. "These woods are yours. Stiles Stilinski and his wolves. I bet you have Ability. I bet you'd make an excellent witch."

"Well, I wouldn't know," he says, slow and measured. "I don't even know what I did last week. But I think you're right. I think these woods are mine. I think my pack would tear you to pieces if I wanted that."

"And do you want that?" she asks, still smiling. "Do you want them to eat me up, Stiles?"

Not really, no, Stiles thinks, because he's angry, yes, but he doesn't want them to kill anyone. He doesn't want anyone to have to die.

"I don't think you do," the witch says. "You're too kind for that, even with all of your memories. You have too much mercy."

"You'd be surprised what I can do under the right circumstances," Stiles argues. He thinks about earlier, that gun in his hands. He would kill her if he had to. If she went after his pack, he would do it in a heartbeat.

She says as much and it wouldn't surprise him if she could read his thoughts. "It's because it's you I've wronged. You don't think much of yourself, even if half our world thinks you're some dark Messiah. You still don't think you're worth a battle. But I wouldn't have taken a job that asked me to touch a hair on their furry little heads. I wouldn't have lived to tell the tale."

"Because of me," Stiles says. "You're… You're more scared of me hurting you because you hurt them…than you are of them hurting you because you hurt me." He shakes his head, trying to figure out exactly what the words that came out of his mouth really were. "Wait. That doesn't make any sense."

"You don't make any sense, you never have. The word is that you've turned down the bite more than once, most people don't get the chance. But you have, and somehow you still lead a pack. You're an impossible thing," she says, quietly, "and it's going to cost me my life."

Stiles squirms just slightly. He shouldn't ask. But he does. "How? Is it… The Kembries, right? They know—or, they think. They think you failed in doing…this. To me. So they're gonna…"

"Oh, they know I failed. I wasn't supposed to…" Her shoulders fall like there's no use anymore. "I wasn't supposed to take your memory. I was supposed to burn your mind. Slowly."

"Oh. Well. That sounds painful."

She blinks up at him. Her eyes are pale green. Stiles thinks she's beautiful. "Yeah, it does."

"So…why? Why would you do that for them? Why do you hate us enough to work for them?"

Her eyes turn hard then, cold and filled with rage. "Because your mate is a monster. An abomination of his kind."

And that's enough to shock Stiles. "Derek… Derek's never done anything. I mean, I… I don't think he has." Then, more emphatically, "He wouldn't. The dude's a recluse. He doesn't leave his damn house, how could he…" He stops. "What do you think he's done?"

"He massacred his family," she hisses without hesitation. "The doctor and her husband, the little boys and girls with no wolf in them. He locked them in their beds and set them all in flames. And when his sister found out." She stops and she looks like she's about to cry and absolutely none of this makes sense. "She was so beautiful. Even if they looked just the same, Laura smiled with her soul. And when she found out he was to blame, he killed her too and took the red from her eyes."

Stiles is completely and totally lost. "He wouldn't," he says, his voice hoarse. "Derek wouldn't… Scott would never be in his pack… I would never tolerate…" He feels dizzy, like he's going to fall over any second, and the witch—he doesn't even know her name, he realizes—is staring at him with tears in her eyes.

"He was beautiful too, once," she says. "Maybe that's what you see. Maybe that's what he lets you see. Or maybe he's trying to clean the ashes of their corpses with your innocent skin."

"Derek's _wouldn't_," he says forcefully. "Derek wouldn't _do_ that—he wouldn't hurt—"

"A fly," the witch finishes for him. "I know that's what you think. That's what he's letting you think, letting all of them think. He doesn't have a shred of remorse in him."

"Why, though?" and really that's the question. Because he can't remember, doesn't know, so he has to ask. "Why would he? Even if it's true—which I'm not saying it is—why would he?"

She falters then, like he's physically struck her. "Because he's wrong inside. Because his wolf wanted power more than pack."

But she sounds unsure. She sounds like she's selling the party line.

And so it hits him. "The Kembries told you that, didn't they?"

"So what if they did?" She stands up then, all leans lines of femininity. Her eyes are angry, her fists are clenched. "That doesn't make it any less true."

Stiles laughs then, laughs like he's never laughed before, all harsh and cutting. "Because a clan of hunters has nothing against a pack of wolves?"

"That's why they have it out for him! They hate him because he's a monster!"

"They hate him because he's a wolf," Stiles says. His voice is powerful, rumbling, and it reminds him of the way he sounded in the clearing at the meeting. Like a leader. "And that story they fed you was to make sure you were on their side."

She looks as if he's just thrown a bucket of ice water at her. "But… Laura."

The way she says the word, reverent and heartbroken, Stiles almost stumbles as the images bombard him.

_Derek, a small picture frame in his hand, his eyes red rimmed. Stiles climbs over the back of the safe and wedges himself there, wrapping his arms around Derek and touching the picture of the beautiful girl. "You know that the pack loves her."_

"_They never even met her," Derek sighs._

_Stiles kisses the back of his neck. "The girls fight over who gets to name their first girl cub Laura."_

"You're so willing to believe them," Stiles says, shaking his head of the memory. "Why? Why do you want to believe them?"

"How else do you explain it?" she demands. "That fire, then her disappearance and her body in the newspaper? The cops suspected him! Your dad suspected him!"

"Innocent," Stiles says. "He's innocent."

He says it calmly, he is calm, because part of him understands her desperation even if he doesn't know her motive.

"Why do you need someone to blame?"

"Because she was my friend. And he…" She licks her lips. "You know, we were in high school together. Laura was my closest friend, and her younger brother… He was so charming and so sweet and so smart. And after the fire…"

"He closed off," Stiles guesses. "Silent, brooding. Mean?"

She nods. "Temper like you wouldn't believe. Laura and I were seniors at the time and he… He was the meanest guy on campus. He scared everyone."

"So how can you believe that he was the one who did it? Why would he do that—why would he kill his own family if he was that broken up about it?" She has to see, Stiles thinks. She has to understand how she's been tricked. "You're not stupid," he tells her. "You have to see the lies they fed you."

The cold rage returns to her eyes and she stands at full height, a few inches above him. "You're the one who won't realize how blind you are. You know nothing about him but you trust him completely. You let him send you into danger. You give him your body."

Stiles can feel him maybe before she can. He can feel a spike of power up his spine that he doesn't understand, but he knows that Derek is there.

"I trust my best friend," Stiles says. "I trust Scott and Scott trusts him and I don't know what I'm doing, okay? And whose fault is that? Yours. So you have no excuse to accuse me of misplaced trust. You're the one who decided to do a job for a group of people whose job it is to _kill_ people like you."

Stiles isn't even sure the witch is aware, but he is. He's acutely aware of Derek's shadow just steps behind him. He's sheltered by the trees, stalking and ready to spring. He can feel the tension of his muscles as if they were his.

And then he ducks. Derek launches over him in the next instant, not fully changed but with fangs and eyes and most of the whole shebang ready and rolling, and tackles the witch to the ground easily, pinning her there.

Stiles' knees give out. He sits on the dirt, staring, as Derek growls right in her face.

He's functioning on very little sleep, he's angry at the world because he can't figure out how he fits inside of it, and he's just—he's pissed. He's pissed at the witch, at the Kembries, at Derek, at himself. This whole thing… This whole thing is a nightmare. And it's his fault.

"Stiles," Derek growls, not even looking at him. "Go back to the house."

"No. Don't—don't hurt her."

Derek turns back to him and his eyes take Stiles' breath away. They're red and shining and Stiles can see the animal in him. He's not afraid.

"Derek, don't her. She could've done worse."

She's lying under Derek, not even trying to move, and Derek is glaring at him with his bright red eyes like he thinks Stiles has lost what's left of his mind. "She could have done worse?"

His tone is mocking, disbelieving.

"Are you serious, Stiles? That's your excuse?"

"Well, she could've! She didn't, like, attack me or—"

Derek snarls. It's not as harsh since his fangs are no longer protruding from his gums. "She did this to you. I said I was going to deal with it."

"Well, I'm dealing with it," Stile says, clear and certain. He stands, shoves himself up, and walks towards Derek only to crouch beside him. He leans up close to the woman who breathes harsh and keeps her eyes closed. "A monster would have killed you, no matter what I had to say."

"Let go," she spits.

"Reverse the spell," Derek counters. "Give him his memory back."

"I got paid—I did a _job_."

"And the Kembries are gonna kill you either way so give—it—back." He growls the last bit in her face.

Stiles notices he's wearing nothing but his jeans and grins. "In a bit of a hurry, Derek?"

"You were gone. Forgive me for worrying."

"So sentimental," the witch sneers. "But you'll probably kill him too, won't you? Or worse, let him die in front of you, knowing it's your fault. Gunned down by bullets meant for you—that's how it'll end for him, Hale. He'll die for you."

"He won't." Derek's voice is almost lost in a growl and he snarls at her.

Stiles puts a hand on his shoulder before Derek is tempted to bite off her face. "Derek, she's taunting you. Relax."

Derek looks pained but leans back, his weight still pressing her down to the ground. "Give them back."

She opens her eyes then, and Stiles can see the wickedness before she even speaks. "I'll give them back, if you give me something in return."

Derek exchanges a glance with Stiles. Then, "I won't protect you from the Kembries. I don't need another reason to have them chasing me."

"Not them. I want to borrow your boy toy."

"Absolutely not."

"Hey!" Stiles exclaims. "I'm not a boy toy."

"Sorry, sweetie," the witch coos. "You kind of are. I want to teach him better, though." She smiles. "I want him to see his real power. More than quick moves and witty words. He'll be a better witch than me and my mother's legacy won't die. And then, Derek, then he's going to see the scum you are and he'll destroy you more thoroughly than I ever could."

"He's mine," Derek says.

"What if he wants to, huh? What if he wants to go with me? What if he wants to be better than you and your filthy bunch of half-breed pups?"

Derek blinks at her.

"I don't," Stiles says, but he doesn't even know if Derek is listening. "I don't want to go with her—I don't want to be that."

"You will," she tells him. "One day you'll wake up and feel powerless and you'll wish you had come with me."

"Never," Stiles hisses.

"He'll overpower you eventually, Stiles. No matter how much he says he loves you, he needs complete control. He'll snap." She looks at Derek, anger shining in her eyes. "And after he kills you to lay claim over his pack, he'll kill the ones who protest."

Stiles glares, his hand tightening on Derek's shaking shoulder. "You're insane."

"I'm right. Why don't you tell him, Derek? Tell him what you did to your family."

Derek's fangs start growing again and Stiles can see his claws as they worm their way out of his skin—he needs to stop this. He needs to stop Derek.

He knows he can't physically shove him off but he's still a skinny little shit so he squirms. He squirms in between Derek and the witch, starting him off balance.

"Derek," he says. "She's baiting you."

"Stiles, what the hell—"

"Don't do this, Derek, or she wins. The Kembries win."

"You could be great," she starts to ramble. "I can feel it. That's why they fear and worship you; it's all there under your skin. Come with me or he'll rip you to shreds before you use your light."

"I use my light plenty, thank you very much," Stiles says back, and then he pokes Derek in the chest. "You're exhausted, emotionally unstable, and angry at the world. You cannot make major decisions under this condition."

Derek glares. "Stiles."

"Seriously—it's like me trying to do my homework on an empty stomach. My brain just doesn't compute."

The woman shoves at him and he back off, because it feels wrong to pin her down even though it's stupid to let her go. But she's not even trying; she just hisses at him like a cornered cat, "Let him kill me, face the monster he is."

But Derek stands up. Derek stands up and dusts off his hands and lets off of his wolfy bits sink back into his skin, his eyes fading back to green.

"I'm better than you are," is what he finally says. The witch is on her elbows, one leg propped up like she's ready to make a run for it, but Derek is still standing over her feet, ready to catch her in an instant.

"Did you chase her down like this?" she snarls. "Did you rip your sister's throat out?"

There's a heartbeat. Two, three, four. Then Derek turns on his heel and walks back towards the trees, calling over his shoulder. "C'mon, Stiles."

Stiles stands. Stares. Because, what?

And so does the witch. She just stares at Derek, the fire in her eyes going out without a single leftover spark. She looks… She looks just as confused as Stiles feels.

"What?" she asks, her voice trembling.

Derek turns to face them again, his thumbs stuck in his jean pockets. "So, basically, she wanted me to harm her so that I would violate the treaty so that the Kembries could kill me because she's still in their pocket—they promised not to kill her as long as she went back and did her job right this time, meaning getting us all out of the picture."

She blinks.

Stiles stares. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Her pockets are stuffed with wolfsbane. The skin of her neck is lined with it. I could smell it from the house." He narrows his eyes at her. "Go back to the Kembries. You'll never make me be like them. No matter what stories they told you, I'm not that guy."

Stiles can feel it like static energy, the way the hair son every part of his body stand on point. He can see the way her hands curl like claws, all in slow motion, but Stiles is quick. Stiles can steal a kiss or press a gun to your throat before you can blink so he can certainly throw his body between the streaks of energy that he can't see but smell—like burning sandalwood—and his boyfriend's back.

He's on the ground before he knows it, and he feels really dizzy, and—

Oh, he thinks that's blood. That feels like blood on his hands, but it's coming from his stomach because when he fell his hands landed on his stomach and, yeah, that's definitely blood.

Abstractly, he can't really feel any pain, but he knows that he will eventually, because as the energy fades and the numbness in his body fades, he can taste copper in his mouth and smell the blood in the air.

Shit, Derek's gonna go ballistic.


	6. Vivere

_**Vivere**_**: To Live**

For some reason he expects Derek and the witch to battle it out. Maybe they do. Maybe he misses it. But it seems as if almost immediately, before he's lost consciousness, Derek is there. Derek is in face losing his shit and cradling him in arms and calling him an idiot and trying not to hurt him as he picks him up. Trying being the operative word because the pain has arrived, and it is excruciating.

"You idiot," Derek is saying. "I can heal, you complete and utter moron, and you can't because you're human and if you die, I'm gonna kill you, Stiles, I swear to God."

Stiles thinks he might make a noise, he's not really sure. Everything is kind of going white, like pretty dots exploding on his eyes.

"Stiles, keep your eyes open." Derek's voice is going all frantic and he's not sure if he's being shaken or if the earth has started moving.

"My eyes are open," he slurs, but he knows they're not because his eyelids are heavy and he really wants to sleep now. Sleep would be nice. He wouldn't have to hurt if he was asleep.

"Dammit, Stiles, don't you dare—if you prove her right, if you die for me—if I have to walk into your father's house and tell him—" He makes a choked off noise. "Stiles, open your eyes."

Stiles wrenches his eyes open, blinking up at Derek. They're sitting somewhere, Stiles thinks. He thinks that's the cover of the porch above Derek's head and maybe Derek had been running back to the house and maybe a bunch of things. All Stiles really knows for sure right now is that Derek is crying.

Derek is totally crying.

There is soft warmth under his body and hard heat above it and it's nice. It feels nice and safe and he wants to stay awake like Derek asks but sleep is too sleep. He wraps his hand around Derek's as if maybe clinging to it will keep him alert.

"You're awesome," Stiles says, blinking too slowly and too often. "Seriously, like so awesome. Like, you're handsome and brave and you're kind of an asshat but you protect people a lot and you obviously care, like, so much, about everyone."

"Stiles."

"It's hurts, Derek."

Derek holds him a little bit closer, Stiles thinks, and there's a forehead against his own. He can feel Derek shaking, feel his tears.

"Derek."

"Don't you dare leave me, okay? Help is coming, okay, Stiles? Just don't—just don't leave me."

"I don't want to leave you. I wanna stay."

Derek laughs wetly, humorlessly, and he kisses Stiles' parted lips, just slightly, just a peck. "Good. Stay."

He's in and out of it for a while, only truly aware of Derek holding him through every second of pain. Then he sees Scott's boss looming over him and it makes sense, he thinks, that the vet is a werewolf, too. But his eyes don't shine, he seems as normal as any day, but then he's pressing against his wound and_ fuck fuck fuck_ that _hurts_.

He feels more than hears Derek's growl. It's protective, but the vet backs off, mutters something. Stiles' eyes slip closed again as he waits, gritting his teeth through the pain that's starting to go a little dull at the edges. He's not sure, but he thinks that might be a bad sign.

Deaton is doing something. He can't keep his eyes open long enough to see what it is, but Derek is asking a ton of questions about how many times he's prepared that kind of treatment and—whoa. Deaton is totally, like, a magical vet. Trippy.

Then there's sticky stuff on him and what the hell, that isn't helping. It just burns more.

"I know," Deaton says quietly. "It's only for the superficial effects. You need to suture the wound from the inside. Now listen to me, Stiles. I need you to focus on the pain.'

Stiles makes a choked laugh/gasp thing and there's a lot of white behind his eyes, all pain, no escape, and he says, "Yeah—good, because the pain's kind of all I can think about." He's panting and shaking a little bit, but he does what Deaton says because maybe it'll all be over soon.

Derek is holding him but Deaton asks him to step back and Stiles whimpers.

"You have to do this on your own. Now, find the core of the pain. Forget the wound and forget everything else that stings and burns. Focus on where it's coming from."

That seems utterly ridiculous, in Stiles' semi-conscious opinion, because it feels like everywhere. It feels like he's burning up from the inside out, that he's being torn apart—but wait. There's a spot. When he searches, when he closes his eyes and grits his teeth and tries, he can see a little light white right in the center of all of the pain, feel the foundation for all of it, and he's pretty sure it's magical.

"Okay," he says, teeth still pressed together. He thinks if he stops concentrating he'll lose it. "Now what?"

Deaton nods. "One of two things. You can expel it…or you could accept it. Absorb it. You're strong enough. It would make you stronger still."

"He could die," Derek growls.

"Not if he concentrates. He can do it."

Stiles clenches his fists. "Derek."

He forces his eyes to stay open and looks up at Derek. He looks pained, torn and helpless.

"Tell me what you want to do, Stiles," Deaton tells him. "I'll talk you through it."

Stiles tries to move his hand but through the pain he can't really tell if he makes it until he can feel Derek's connected with his, too hot and sweaty, shaking. He squeezes as tight as he can. "I can do it," he tells Derek. "I totally could. Look at me, I'm a badass."

"Stiles," Derek says, "expel it. Please, for me, just expel it. Don't take the risk."

Stiles is still looking at him and he knows that there isn't any time to waste. But he also knows that this isn't about Derek or Deaton or the pack. He knows the little light is alive and he knows this is between the two of them. So he closes his eyes and blocks the sounds of Deaton's prodding and the sight of Derek's pleading eyes and turn to himself. The energy knows it doesn't belong in him. It hurts so badly because it's out of place and out of time. He realizes the choice isn't his. He tries to convey that, stay or go, I'm not holding you hostage, just stop killing me.

And then, just like that, the pain starts to increase. He thinks he screams, but he's not really sure. He knows he's writhing, he can feel tears at the corners of his eyes, and he tries to focus like Deaton said, focus on the core, but it's too late. He can't find the core anymore. He can sense the overall bundle of energy sinking deeper inside of him, spreading in him like an infection, and he thinks this is it. He's gonna die.

Then it stops. Everything stops. The pain turns to pleasurable warmth in his fingertips and toes. His shirt and his jeans are stained with blood but his bare chest and stomach are clean. He can feel Derek's hand clenching his own, and can see the first tip of the sun just glimmering over the horizon. It doesn't hurt anymore, and Deaton is smiling calmly. "Well done, Stiles."

He looks down at himself and traces the mark on him, like tree roots or the sand turned glass where lightning strikes. "Did it… What did it do?"

"You absorbed it." Derek's hand tightens as Deaton speaks. "Really, well done. That," he says, and points to the vein-like mark on his chest, "is permanent, I'm afraid." It's long, going down from his left pectoral and trailing just below his sternum. "It's a scar from the magic, but it's also indicative of the power you absorbed. For an untrained witch, you are certainly capable of being a marvelous one."

Stiles blinks, surprised by how well he feels so quickly. "Wait now. You're saying I'm a witch? Like I've been a secret witch?"

Deaton shrugs. "Lots of humans have Ability. It's just most don't actually have the sort of acquaintances you have, Stiles, and when they're not exposed to their own power it eventually ebbs away."

"You don't have to do anything with it," Derek tells him, and he sounds exhausted.

"But I could, right? Like…spells and stuff." He blinks up at Derek. "Could I get my memory back?"

Stiles squeezes Derek's hand while looking at Deaton. The man crosses his arms, says, "From what Derek's told me, it wasn't an actual spell that took your memory. It was a badly executed one meant for something else. So there really is no counter spell. I'd assume it will just slowly heal itself. The boost to your Ability should help. Have you been remembering anything at all?"

Stiles nods. "Some things. Little things. Then…slightly bigger things."

"I'd wager that your memory should be back by the end of the month, if not sooner. It will come in periods and then, possibly, all at once. You're more likely to be triggered into remembering through a familiar act."

Derek snorts.

Stiles hits him.

Deaton smiles and runs a hand over his face. "Alright, I think you two will be fine. If you don't mind, some of us have regular work hours."

They both thank him and he waves in response as he makes his way back to his car. Stiles sits up a little more fully, looking at Derek's eyes. They're still mossy green and Stiles can't even tell that he'd been crying, but when he meets Stiles' gaze, there's an intensity there that makes Stiles want to howl.

"What'd you do with the witch?" he asks because he has to know.

Derek looks down and breathes in and out with his whole body like it's a chore. "She ran. But I know what I'm going to do when I catch up with her."

Stiles shakes his head. "She won't come back. And I don't think you should follow her."

"If she escapes the Kembries—"

"Derek." Stiles reaches up with his free hand and curls it around the back of Derek's neck. "I'm exhausted. Can we just…go to bed?"

Derek blinks. Then ducks down and lifts Stiles up like he weights nothing, carrying him bridal style inside the house. Stiles laughs, tucking his face against Derek's neck.

"I have legs, you know."

"This is faster."

As soon as Derek sets him down he knows Stiles is asleep. He is logically aware that's what it is, that Stiles is only asleep and there's nothing to worry about, that Stiles is unknowably strong right now. But he stays still and waiting beside him, making sure that his breathing comes in pairs.

When the pack begins to show up a couple of hours later, Erica is the first one there, the others following behind her. The second the scent of blood hits her nose, she's already sporting fangs and yellow eyes. Stiles' blood on the porch, she realizes, and she tears inside with Boyd and Isaac already on her heels.

The house is quiet except for the snoring upstairs, but Isaac runs up the stairs and knocks open the closed door of Derek's bedroom. When he sees Stiles is safe, hears his heartbeat and his breathing, he starts to calm down just a little, but he still growls.

Stiles sits up lazily, like he's moving through water. "It's too early to wolfy stuff—go away."

"What the hell happened?" Erica growls at non-morning-time volume levels.

Stiles cringes into Derek, who wraps his arms tighter around him, apparently finding it quite easy to ignore his hyperventilating pups.

Boyd isn't screaming, but he still sounds upset. "Your blood is all over the house."

"Magic mishap," Stiles says. "We met the witch out in the woods and she was kind of a crazy bitch and she tried to hurt Derek—"

"And you stepped in the crosshairs instead," Erica finishes. "God, Stiles, you never learn."

Derek growls something without much threat that sounds like a plea to let him sleep and Stiles isn't as surprised as he should be when the three of them strip their shoes and jackets and climb into bed.

"I'm sure Derek would've called you if I'd died," Stiles tells them.

"Shut up, Stiles," Erica says. She buries her face in his chest. "Nice scar, though. Very manly."

He grins. "I know, right? Looks like I got hit by lightning."

Derek snuffles a snore into Erica hair. "Sleep," he mumbles.

Stiles hasn't realized how exhausted he was, but he drifts in and out of sleep all morning. He sort of catches part of the commotion when the rest of the pack comes in, but the others take care of it and let him sleep. Derek doesn't—take care of it, that is. Derek takes care of him. He stays wrapped around him even though the few times that Stiles comes to he finds Derek fully awake.

It must be around noon by the time Stiles rolls over and kisses Derek's jaw. "Sleep is awesome," he says.

"Feeling better?"

"Feeling awesome."

"Breakfast?"

Stiles smiles. "You know me so well."

Stiles is running his hand over the weird scar when they get to the breakfast table, where it seems eating has been happening for hours because every scrap of food is laid out somewhere. Everyone crowds him nearly instantly, but they don't ask question and he assumes that Scott talked to Deaton because he's looking at the scar with curiosity but with little confusion.

"This always happens when you two go at it," Jackson says as he grabs another piece of toast.

Boyd nods as he steals Lydia's orange juice. "You get laid and then you get in trouble."

Derek sits in the only available seat at the table, pulling Stiles into his lap. "Purely coincidental," he says, and reaches for a plate of pancakes.

Stiles knows he's blushing. Erica winks at him.

Isaac is chewing on something like he's pondering a deep philosophical question and Stiles is scared of what's about to come out of his mouth. "Maybe when they do it Derek fuels him up with werewolf superpowers and that's why he's so badass."

Allison drops her face on the table but Lydia snorts. "Like magical semen superpowers?"

"Enough," Derek growls, but he's smiling as he bites off half a bagel.

"Stiles was badass before they started having sex," Scott adds.

Stiles nods at him. "Thank you."

Derek picks up a piece of bacon and offers it to Stiles, saying, "Well, his ass was a lot of things," under his breath, but everyone in the room catches it, and Stiles' eyes widen as his flush deepens.

He decides to shrug it off since there's no way to get out of it, and takes the bacon out of Derek's hands with his teeth. "You should all shut up because you're just jealous that I'm now a magical badass that's getting laid regularly."

Scott raises his hand. "I'm a magical badass that's getting laid regularly."

Allison laughs. Scott frowns.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "Please. _I'm_ a magical badass that's getting laid regularly. _You_," she says, pointing at Stiles, "are a magical human Alpha who has super hot sex with your super hot Alpha mate. Don't dumb it down, Stiles. _Brag_."

Derek holds him on his lap for the next hour or so as the pack finishes up the meal. As they disperse, Derek standing to help move things to the kitchen, none of them actually leave the house but just spread out, and Stiles squirms. And, well, it's not really his fault. His lost his virginity less than 24 hours ago and he's not really ready to go back to reality yet. He kind of can't bear to keep his hands off of Derek.

Boyd is the one who notices.

"I'm guessing that if we don't leave within the next few minutes, Derek is going to throw us out." He winds an arm around Erica's waist. "Stiles smells like desire."

Lydia arches an eyebrow. "Well, well, well. Can't get enough, can he?"

"Well," Stiles says, smirking. "It's Derek."

Derek looks smug as he puts things away, all domestic buff. "You should all keep your noses out of his desire."

Stiles nods. "It's a little weird, yeah. Especially when you realize that I kind of always want him."

"Trust us." Erica grins. "We know."

"Okay, I'm leaving," Scott groans, turning to Allison. "Can we leave? Let's leave."

The house is empty in seconds. Derek is standing against the kitchen counter, watching Stiles watch him, and Stiles licks his lips.

"So."

"So."

"We should have sex again."

Derek smirks. "Really?"

"Totally." Stiles smirks at him as best he can but all he can manage is a smile.

Derek looks unsure about it, still keeping his distance. "You were injured."

"And now I'm fine. Better than fine." He spreads out his hands beside him and looks at them curiously. "I can feel it."

Derek licks his lips. "How… How does it feel?"

"Strong. Warm." He looks up, meets Derek's eyes. "Like how I feel when you hold me."

They gravitate towards each other then, like a crash, and Derek didn't expect this. It's not that it's weird for them, just the opposite. The battle of lips and teeth and trying to get the better of the other. It's so normal for them that it throws him off.

Still, he has Stiles in his arms, so he's not going to protest.

He bends his knees, still keeping Stiles' mouth attached to his, and lifts Stiles by his thighs, making sure they're wrapped tight around his hips before he starts walking towards the stairs.

Stiles laughs. "How masculine."

"Shut up and kiss me."

So if he throws Stiles on the bed with a little force maybe he's just testing a theory, and he smiles down at him when Stiles leans up on elbows and laughs. He's got the mischievous look in his eyes that says he's got an idea. "So since we've already made love once," he says, and there's only a slight bit of mockery in the phrase, "how about we fuck now?"

Derek isn't slow this time. They race to nakedness, kissing and touching and stumbling, fighting over zippers and boxers and when they're skin-to-skin, sprawled out on the bed, Derek grins at him.

Stiles arches an eyebrow. "Don't stop now, big guy."

"Wasn't. Just…enjoying the view."

Stiles looks down at his own chest and licks his lips. "It's kind of weird and awesome. Now I've got a tattoo that means something for the pack, like you."

Derek hesitates. Then he kisses Stiles so deeply that Stiles can feel it in his toes. And…other places.

"C'mon," he whines, nipping Derek's bottom lip. "Touch me."

And he does. He touches with reverence but a little bit of edge, not as gentle as he's been so far. He maps and explores and the way he kisses Stiles, every part of him, it feels like he takes.

Stiles gives and Derek takes and when Stiles flips them so he's on top, straddling Derek's thighs like he was born to fit there, Derek's breath goes away from him.

"You're too slow," Stiles breathes.

He leans over the side of bed where Derek left the lube earlier and when he sits up on his knees, Derek licks his lips. Stiles likes that. It looks like Derek wants to eat him alive.

He works himself open this time. It doesn't take as much of an effort and he feels like he could do things like this all the time, shameless things that make Derek's eyes go dark. He wonders if he can make them flash.

When he's three fingers deep in himself and crying out for Derek to fuck him—fuck him now, please, please—he shudders and shakes and lets his fingers ease out of his body, wiping them carelessly on the sheet. Derek's hands are on his ass, but Stiles swats at them. He has other plans.

He slithers down Derek's body as sensually as he can manage, and sucks Derek into his mouth.

He thinks he hears a roar.

When he peeks up, mouth still occupied, Derek's eyes are decidedly red.

It's awesome.

"Okay," Derek gasps. "Now—now, you can ride me now."

He gives one more lick that makes Derek hiss and then pulls himself up, climbing onto Derek's lap and peeking back because missing right now would be a bad idea. He loses a little bit of his control as he starts to bring himself down onto Derek's cock because, well, he's not quite bad ass enough to keep his composure at a time like that, but Derek is right there to hold on to him.

Derek's big hands are on his hips and his own hands are on Derek's chest. His shoulders are hunched forward, his thighs are already aching in a really pleasant way, and even though he took it up the ass three times in a row not too long ago, he's only slightly ashamed to be enjoying the stinging pleasure of Derek filling him up again.

His breath stutters when he's finally all the way down and they're so much closer than he thought they could be and he smiles, only slightly pained. "This is so much dirtier than last time."

Derek laughs, his head tilted back. Stiles wants to lick his throat. "You have no idea what dirty is," Derek tells him. "Not yet, at least."

Stiles grins. "I'm holding you to that."

He uses his hands on Derek's chest to push himself up and then fall back down and that shuts them both up for a while. Then Derek does a sort of perfect curl up that changes his angle inside Stiles and brings them close, chest to chest.

Stiles moans, thrusting down with his entire body in tiny, desperate pulls, and Derek wraps his arms around Stiles, holding him tight. He draws his knees up against Stiles' back and Stiles is completely trapped against his body.

"Arms around my shoulders," Derek says lowly. Stiles does it. "Knees to the mattress." Stiles pushes off Derek's cock just slightly to reach, holding in a whimper. "Now move."

Stiles loses all capability of thought and gives in to the need of having Derek flush against him and inside him and he feels it fueling the force in him. He wants to laugh when he's reminded of Isaac's earlier words but then he's distracted by the pull inside of him. "Close, Derek, I'm close."

"Don't come yet—not yet." He sucks on the skin of Stiles' neck. "Just wait a little longer."

"If you leave a hickey, I'll kill you."

Derek chuckles, vibrating and gentle, and then Stiles doesn't even care about hickies anymore. He rides with abandon, everything narrowing down to that singular point inside of him where Derek is loving him, filling him, making him feel things he's never felt in his life.

And then something shifts.

He clings to Derek's shoulders like he'll float away or die. He closes his eyes and he doesn't see but he knows. He knows. He knows about being confused but fascinated by the world his best friend accidently pulls him into, he knows about half of a dead girl and what her spirit means to the pack, he knows about Derek's hard eyes and Derek's blue eyes, and Derek's eyes when he says I love you in the middle of the day. He knows about catching his dad and Scott's mom kissing and flashing the porch lights. He know about his responsibility, his pack and his land, he knows about the packs and clans across the country and he knows about a hundred laws and treaties and knows how to keep track.

He knows his life.

"Derek," he gasps. "Derek."

Derek kisses him. "God, Stiles, you feel so good."

"No—Derek." He forces himself to stop moving because no, this is more important than sex and wow, he never thought he'd think that. "I remember."

Derek nods, kissing his chin. "What did you remember this time?"

"Derek." Stiles hits him over the back of his head. "Stupid sour wolf—I remember."

Derek freezes, looks straight into his eyes and brings his hands up to his face. "It's back? You're back?"

Stiles cups his face, pulling him in for a kiss. "Yes—yes, I'm back."

Derek gathers him up as if he could pull Stiles into his body and then flips them over without slipping out of him. He kisses him and rambles and he kisses him some more. "You remember the day in the woods when I told you to get out?"

Stiles bites under his ear. "When I realized there was a dark, brooding, demigod living in the woods? Yes."

"And last year when we went out to the coast?"

Stiles nuzzles his neck and he missed that so much, the pack habits Stiles has picked up. "And you all played like puppies in the sand? I remember."

Derek shudders. "Stiles. Oh, God, Stiles."

"Hey, c'mon, kiss me. Look—we're so much better than Deaton thought we would be! It only took us a week!"

Derek kisses him, wraps his arms around Stiles and kisses him until they're both breathless.

Derek moves just right and Stiles, confident and more wolf than any human had a right to be, scratches his mark down Derek's back. Derek growls as he thrusts faster, harder, losing all semblance of control. Stiles moans and pants. He smiles and leans into Derek's ear, "Fuck me until I forget my name this time."

"Don't want you to forget," Derek growls, but he elongates his thrusts, pulling farther out and then pushing back in with heaving hips so that Stiles thrashes and arches and moans. "Don't forget again, Stiles."

"Wouldn't dare. Could never leave you behind."

It doesn't take long for them to come. Stiles does first, jerking himself off and moaning into Derek's mouth, and Derek follows after, shuddering and shaking in Stiles' arms.

It feels right again, perfect again, Stiles holding him and knowing why. They kiss, slow and fast and soft and hard and everything in between.

"Can't even lose you again." He buries his face into Stiles' neck and he can't even cry, he feels so much overwhelming relief.

"You won't. Ever. And you know." Stiles pushes him up just slightly so they can look each other in the eyes. "The best way to celebrate?"

Derek sighs, but his mouth is smiling.

"Also—I can't believe you retook my virginity. Do you have any idea how cheesy that is?"

Derek makes a face but he can't get rid of his smile. "Sixteen-year-old you was very romantic."

"Damn straight." Stiles runs his fingers through Derek's hair. "We should have sex again."

"Right now?"

"Right now. We have a whole week to make up for. That's at least, like, six more times."

Derek chuckles and Stiles squirms, feeling the vibrations from it.

Stiles relaxes as Derek runs his hands through his hair, the hair he grew out when he gave up his secret mourning and shared his grief with the pack, that Derek likes to get his fingers into so he can hold him down.

"God," he sighs. "Sixteen-year-old me didn't know what to do with you." He squirms out from under Derek and rolls himself onto his back. "Didn't know what you liked." He moves to straddle Derek's waist and watches the tension in his shoulders ease out. "Like this."

Derek makes a purr-like noise into the pillow and Stiles bends over nuzzlings at the tattoo between Derek's shoulder blades. It's a thing with him. Derek likes it when Stiles is all spread along his back, kissing, touching his tattoo. It's intimate.

"Your skin is so warm," Stiles whispers against the ink. "Your shoulders. Your back. Every part of you is so beautiful, Derek."

"Eighteen-year-old you is pretty romantic too," Derek decides.

Stiles smiles against his skin and runs his hands, slow and steady, over his back. "Eighteen-year-old me knows what to do with you."

Derek grins. "I love you, Stiles."

Stiles leans forward so that the patterned scar on his chest is pressed close against the dark ink on Derek's back. He nibbles at his ear the way he knows drives Derek's mad. "I love you."

"We kind of match," Derek says. "The scar and the tattoo. I can feel the raised skin against my back."

Stiles snorts. "Of course you can, werewolf."

"We fit, Stiles."

Stiles smiles, kisses his shoulder. "Yeah, we do. We always do."

"The Skinwalker's pack. Little Red and his wolves." Derek sighs. Stiles can feel the relief spreading through his body, his contentment flooding him.

Stiles growls softly, the artificial sound vibrating through Derek's body. "We're gonna be legends, Derek."

"Well… You will."


	7. Finis

_**Finis**_**: The End**

Stiles is 23 years old when there's a knock on his apartment door.

"Not it," Derek grumbles from the couch.

"It wouldn't be for you anyway," Stiles teases. "This is my place. You have your own house."

Derek doesn't say, _But we really do live together_, even though it's true, because they do. The house is the pack's now and Derek stay with him, and a lot of things have changed. One thing that hasn't changed, however, is Derek's people skills.

Before Stiles even reaches the doorway, Derek is in front of him, growling just softly.

"What are you doing?"

Derek holds a finger to his lips. "I recognize the scent."

"…good scent or bad scent?"

Derek glares.

"Bad scent it is."

"But it's not—it's not the same. It's different."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Derek, can I answer the door please?"

"No," he bites back, but it's been a long time since Stiles has let the overprotective stuff fly so he grabs Derek's shoulder and uses it as leverage to jump over him and open the door.

They don't look like witches, but then neither had that girl those years ago, and yet they prickle with their combined energy. He makes sure his is felt as well. "Ladies, I'm sure it's a misunderstanding but this is not where we conduct business."

"You're the Skinwalker?" one of them asks. She looks no older than 19 and she has a little bundle in her arms, swathed in pink. And that's totally a baby.

Stiles glances down at it and back up at the girl. "To some people," he says. He can feel Derek looming behind him.

"You don't seem to be very good at listening," Derek says. "My mate said that we do not conduct business here. That means leave."

An older woman steps ahead, the oldest of the four there, bringing her disturbingly close to Stiles so that he has to hold his hand out against Derek's chest to hold him back. "We are not here on the business of wolves, we are here in search of the little one's light. Her mother is gone but her light survives outside of the child—it led us to you. We would not cross you, Skinwalker, we but we have a duty to what is best for the child."

Stiles arches an eyebrow. "Her mother? Her mother's _light_? I'm sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else. I've never…" Then he frowns. "Oh."

"We believe you met our sister approximately five years ago. Her presence…stirred up some memories."

Derek growls.

"She left her light in me when she tried to kill my mate," Stiles tells them. "I just…jumped in front of the…thing."

"Nevertheless." The older woman picks up the pink bundle and extends her arms towards Stiles.

Stiles takes a step back, his mask of leadership and confidence falling aside. "Whoa. Whoa, whoa, what?"

"The girl is rightfully yours."

"I never got anyone pregnant!" he argues. "No, no way—I'm not—just because her mom stuck her magic in me—that doesn't mean—"

Derek's hand on his hip silences him. "It's tradition," he explains softly. "The witch's coven is not her biological family and with her gone…you are the next in line to be her caretaker."

Stiles licks his lips. "I'm a high school English teacher. My mate just teaches middle school kids how to beat the crap out of each other—"

"It's called kickboxing, Stiles."

"—and I am not ready to be a dad."

The woman is still holding the baby out and it's making Stiles anxious, a little child just being handed out like that—it isn't right. She should be held close and kept safe.

"She has no father to speak of, not one that knows she exists or would know what to do with a child of light. It's more than Ability, it is full and nourished power in her. You are not as young as you let yourself believe." She smiles. "She will be well. A coven is an institute that unites and protects, Skinwalker, but a pack is a family."

"My dad will think you got me pregnant," Stiles mutters weakly to Derek.

There's no way to say no now. Stiles has already made up his mind, whether or not he knows it.

"Just…how?" he asks. "How did this… Why?"

The woman sighs. "Take the child, let us enter your home, and we shall explain."

Stiles doesn't need Derek's permission to do anything, not really, but he glances up all the same, just for reassurance. Derek just blinks at him. And when Stiles turns back to the woman, he takes the child.

She's tiny and beautiful and very calm. He finds that weird, that she's so quiet, and her eyes are the same color of the ones he saw all those years ago. She's looking at him curiously and doesn't fidget or cry. He looks up at Derek, who is looking at him with those hearts in his eyes, and he knows they're both done for. He pulls the baby close to his chest as everyone comes inside and then sits across from the women.

"We are a coven in Vancouver," the older one explains. "Molly, the young witch you met, came to us shortly after the debacle here."

Stiles still hasn't looked away from the baby. "What's her daughter's name?"

"Her mother passed during childbirth and none of us felt right giving her a name." She wrings her hands in her lap. "That honor is only for her biological coven."

Stiles tickles the baby girl softly and she makes a pleased noise, giggling. "Her mother hated us. The whole reason you were led to me is that she tried to kill our Alpha."

"She was misled. Our coven is close with the surrounding pack—the one that coined your title. They explained her fallacies and she repented."

"She never even checked to see if I was alive."

The woman clears her throat. "We all make mistakes."

Derek is trying to be a badass and not stare at the baby so Stiles hands her to him. Watching him fumble with her is almost good enough to break character and crack up in front of coven. He schools his features and turns back to them. "So she's mine? She's ours?"

"Until a time comes in which she needs a coven."

Derek growls.

"But that will be seen to when the time comes," the woman amends. "No deals are being made today, Alpha Hale."

"Except that we get to keep her?"

She nods.

Stiles smiles. "Then thank you for delivering her to us safely." The few coven members stand to leave and Stiles knows that Derek appreciates the brevity.

He is still looking ridiculous adorable holding the quiet bundle in his arms. The kid's squirming a little bit and Derek is staring with wonder in his eyes. He doesn't look away as he says, "If you ever need our favor, my pack is in your debt."

The eldest witch looks at them as the others file out the door. "She is a wandering little soul like her mother before her, but I believe she will make a fine cub." With that, she walks out the door, closing it behind her.

"Derek," Stiles says, standing still and staring at the closed door. "I was going to call for pizza and now we have a daughter. Am I correct?"

"Sounds about right."

There's a pause. Then Stiles lets out a little giggle. "We have a daughter. Oh, shit, we have a daughter." He spins on his heel and his eyes are wide and terrified. "Derek, we have a daughter. But we have no diapers, no formula, no crib, no nothing! We don't have baby food or medical records or a pediatrician or any of that, like, super important baby stuff—and I have to go to work in the morning and you have to go to work in the morning and what are we going to do?!"

Derek smirks. "Stiles."

"Don't—don't make that face at me!" He points an accusatory finger, but his anger falls short because Derek has his own finger out. And the little girl in his arms is grabbing at it with her tiny, tiny hands.

"Stiles, we have a kid."

"Holy shit, Derek."

"You're going to have to tone down the language, now." Derek smirks. "She's yours. And so kind of ours."

"Derek, she's definitely ours." He sighs, kneeling on the couch across from his boyfriend. "You are my Alpha. I am your mate and this is my kid, your cub, our Laura."

Derek goes really still and Stiles takes the girl in his arms.

The child squirms, a tiny cooing noise escapes her mouth. When both men look down at her she has spit running down her chin.

Stiles thinks it's the most adorable thing in the world.

Derek lifts Stiles' chin and kisses him, honest and quick. "Are you ever going to stop giving me everything I don't know I need?"

Stiles smiles. "Probably not. But you know what we need right now?"

Derek arches an eyebrow.

"Everything I just mentioned." He kisses Derek again and stands. "Seriously, like—diapers. And baby monitors. And clothes. And food. Laura can't go without food, Derek."

"Lydia's gonna be mad we got the name first."

Stiles smiles and hums. "Mm, pregnant rage, cannot wait. But she wanted to do it for you. I gotta say, it was sort of driving me crazy that I couldn't give you that." He leans down and kisses the baby's chubby cheek. "And now we have a Laura," he continues. "Some good things come from near death experiences after all."

In the end the witch is kind of an important figure in their lives and whatever grudge she had against Derek must have been overshadowed by her affinity for Stiles because… This is everything.

And this just cannot be happening.

But it is.


End file.
